
Gass 
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yEEKLY PoBH Cfr Ttor/" of TryE BgfrT COHr\Et/T &i STAHjtMJP LlT£R^TOR,g 




Vol. T. No. 398. June 06, 1884. Annual Subscription, $30.00.^1^ 



English Men of Letters, Edited by John Morley 



LIFE 



OF 



BY 



POPE 



LESLIE STEPHEN 



Entered at the Post office, N Y., us secon.I-class matter 

Copyright, 1883, by John W. Lovkll Co. Wf 



NEW VORK^: 



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- LOVELL'S LIBRARY-CATALOGUE. 



i. Hyperion 20 

2. Outre-Mer 20 

3. The Happy Boy 10 

4. Arne 10 

5. Frankenstein 10 

6. TheLast of theMohicans.20 

7. Clytie 20 

8. The Moonstone, Part 1 . 10 

9. The Moonstone, Part II. 10 

10. Oliver Twist 20 

1 1 . The Coming Race 10 

12. Leila 10 

13. The Three Spaniards.. .20 

14. The Tricks of the Greeks.20 

15. L'Abbe Constantin 20 

16. Freckles 20 

17. The Dark Colleen 20 

18. They were Married ....10 

19. Seekers After God 20 

20. The Spanish Nun 10 

21. Green Mountain Boys.. 20 

22. Fleurette 20 

23. Second Thoughts 20 

24. The New Magdalen ....20 

25. Divorce 20 

26. Life of Washington 20 

27. Social Etiquette 15 

28. Single Heart, Double 

Face 10 

29. Irene ; or, The Lonely 

Manor 20 

30. Vice Versa 20 

31. Ernest Maltravers 20 

32. The Haunted House. ..10 

33. John Halifax 20 

34. 800 Leagues on the 
Amazon 10 

35. The Cryptogram 10 

36. Life of Marion 20 

37. Paul and Virginia 10 

38. A Tale of Two Cities .... 20 

39. The Hermits 20 

40. An Adventure in Thule, 
etc 10 

41. A Marriage in High Life2o 

42. Robin 20 

43. Two on a Tower 20 

44. Rasselas 10 

45. Alice ; a sequel to Er- 

nest Maltravers 20 

46. Duke of Kandos 20 

47. Baron Munchausen 10 

48. A Princess of Thule 20 

49. The Secret Despatch.. ..20 

50. Early Days of Christian- 
ity , 2 Parts, each 20 

51. Vicar of Wakefield 10 

52. Progress and Poverty.. .20 

53. The Spy 20 

54. East Lynne 20 

55. A Strange Story 20 

56. Adam Bede, Part 1 15 

Adam Bede, Part II 15 

57. The Golden Shaft 20 

58. Portia 20 

59. Last Days of Pompeii... 20 

60. The Two Duchesses. . • .20 

61. Tom Brown 's'SchoolDays.20 
(,2. Wooing O't, 2 Pts. each. 15 

63. The Vendetta 20 

64. Hypatia, Part 1 15 

O Hypatia, Part II 15 



Selma 15 

Margaret and her Brides- 
maids 20 

Horse Shoe Robinson, 

2 Parts, each 15 

Gulliver's Travels 20 

Amos Barton io 

The Berber 20 

Silas Marner 10 

Queen of the County . . .20 

Life of Cromwell 15 

Jane Eyre 20 

Child'sHist'ry of Engl'd. 20 

Molly Bawn 20 

Pillone 15 

Phyllis 20 

Romola, Part 1 15 

Romola, Part II 15 

Science in ShortChapters.20 

Zanom 20 

A Daughter of Heth 20 

Right and Wrong Uses of 

the Bible 20 

Night and Morning, Pt. 1. 15 
NightandMorning,Pt.II 15 

Shandon Bells 20 

Monica 10 

Heart and Science 20 

The Golden Calf 20 

The Dean's Daughter. . .20 

Mrs. Geoffrey 20 

Pickwick Papers, Part 1 . 20 
Pickwick Papers, Part 1 1. 20 

Airy, Fairy Lilian 20 

Macleod of Dare 20 

Tempest Tossed, Part 1 . 20 
Tempest Tossed ; P't 1 1 . 20 
Letters from High Lat- 
itudes 20 

Gideon Fleyce 20 

India and Ceylon 20 

The Gypsy Queen 20 

The Admiral's Ward. . . .20 
Nimport, 2 Parts, each .. 1 5 

Harry Holbrooke. • 20 

Tritons, 2 Parts, each . . 15 
Let Nothing You Dismay, to 
LadyAudley's Secret... 20 
Woman's Place To-day. 20 
Dunallan, 2 parts, each. 15 
Housekeeping and Home 

making 15 

No New Thing 20 

TheSpoopendykePapers.20 

False Hopes 15 

Labor and Capital 20 

Wanda, 2 parts, each ... 15 
More Words about Bible. 20 
Monsieur Lecocq, P't. 1. 20 
Monsieur Lecocq, Pt. 1 1 . 20 
An Outline of Irish Hist. 10 

The Lerouge Case 20 

Paul Clifford 20 

A New Lease of Life.. .20 

Bourbon Lilies 20 

Other People's Money.. 20 

Lady of Lyons 10 

Ameline de Bourg 15 

A Sea Queen 20 

The Ladies Lindores. ..20 

Haunted Hearts 10 

Loys, Lord Beresford.. .20 



Under Two Flags, Pt 1 . 20 
Under Two Flags, Pt II. 20 

Money 10 

In Peril of His Life 20 

, India; What can it teach 

us? 20 

Jets and Flashes 20 

Moonshine and Margue- 
rites 10 

Mr. Scarborough's 
Family, 2 Parts, each . . 15 

Arden 15 

Tower of Percemont.. . .20 

Yolande 20 

Cruel London 20 

The Gilded Clique 20 

Pike County Folks 20 

Cricket on the Hearth.. 10 

Henry Esmond 20 

Strange Adventures of a 

Phaeton 20 

Denis Duval i o 

OldCuriosityShop.P't 1. 15 
01dCuriosityShop,P'rt II. 15 

Ivanhoe, Part I 15 

I vanhoe, Part II 15 

White Wings 20 

The Sketch Book 20 

Catherine io 

Janet's Repentance. ... 10 
Barnaby Rudge, Part 1.15 
Barnaby Rudge, Part I '.15 

Felix Holt 20 

Richelieu 10 

Sunrise, Part 1 15 

Sunrise, Part 1 1 15 

Tour of the World i 80 

Days 20 

Mystery of Orcival 20 

Lovel, the Widowe 10 

Romantic Adventu es of 

a Milkmaid 10 

DavidCopperfield, Part 1. 20 
DavidCopperfield, 'rtll.20 
Charlotte Temple . . . 10 
Rienzi, 2 Parts, t >ch ... 15 

Promise of M.irr ige 10 

Faith and Unf.ii h to 

The Happy Ma 

Barry Lyndon 20 

Eyre's Acquitts' ic 

20,000 Leagues underlie: 

Sea 2 

Anti-Slavery I ays 2 

Beauty's Dan ,hters 2 

Beyond the Sunrise 2c 

Hard Times 2c 

Tom Cringlt 's Log . . . 

Vanity Fair 

Underground Russia 
Middlemarch,2 Pts. each. 20 

Sir Tom 

Pelham 

The Story of Ida 10 

Madcap Violet 20 

The Little Pilgrim.. 

Kilmeny 

Whist, or Bumblenuppy?, 10 
That Beautiful Wretch., o 

Her Mother's Sin ■ > 

Green Pastures, etc so 

Mysterious Island, Pt I 



ALEXANDER POPE 






BY 

LESLIE STEPHEN 



NEW YORK: 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 

14 & 1 6 Vesey Street. 



\V 






?tt 



1 



lo 



^ 






CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Page. 
Early Years .9 

CHAPTER II. 

First Period of Pope's Literary Career . . .21 

CHAPTER III. 

Pope's Homer 45 

CHAPTER IV. 

Pope at Twickenham • • • • 57 

CHAPTER V. 
The War with the Dunces 75 

CHAPTER VI. 
Correspondence 90 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Escay on Man * 103 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Epistles and Satires 116 

CHAPTER IX. 
The End .... 131 



POPE. 

CHAPTER I. 

EARLY YEARS. 

The father of Alexander Pope was a London merchant, a de- 
vout Catholic, and not improbably a convert to Catholicism. His 
mother was one of seventeen children of William Turner, of York ; 
one of her sisters was the wife of Cooper, the well-known portrait- 
painter. Mrs. Cooper was the poet's godmother ; she died when 
he was five years old, leaving to her sister, Mrs. Pope, "a grinding- 
stone and muller," and their mother's "picture in limning; " and 
to her nephew, the little Alexander, all her "books, pictures, and 
medals set in gold or otherwise." 

In after-life the poet made some progress in acquiring the art 
of painting ; and the bequest suggests the possibility that the pre- 
cocious child had already given some indications of artistic taste. 
Affectionate eyes were certainly on the watch for any symptoms of 
developing talent. Pope was born on May 21, 1688 — the annus 
mirabilis which introduced a new political era in England, and was 
fatal to the hopes of ardent Catholics. About the same time, 
partly, perhaps, in consequence of the catastrophe, Pope's father 
retired from business, and settled at Binfield, a village two miles 
from Wokingham and nine from Windsor. It is near Bracknell, 
one of Shelley's brief perching places, and in such a region as 
poets might love, if poetic praises of rustic seclusion are to be 
taken- seriously. To the east were the " forests and green re- 
treats " of Windsor ; and the wild heaths of Bagshot, Chobham, 
and Aldershot stretched for miles to the south. Some twelve 
miles off in that direction, one may remark, lay Moor Park, where 
the sturdy pedestrian, Swift, was living with Sir W. Temple during 
great part of Pope's childhood ; but it does not appear that his 
walks ever took him to Pope's neighbourhood, nor did he see, till 
some years later, the lad with whom he was to form one of the 
most famous of literary friendships. The little household was 
presumably a very quiet one, and remained fixed at Binfield for 
twenty-seven years, till the son had grown to manhood and cele- 
brity. From the earliest period he seems to have been a domestic 

(9) 



POPE. 

ijgL tic was not an only child, for lie had a half-sister, by ;ns 
lather's side, who must have been considerably older than hitns .!i 
as her mother died nine years before the poet's birth. But he wa& 
the only child of Ids mother, and his parents concentrated upo; 
him an affection winch lie returned with touching ardour and yz: 
sistence. They were both forty-six in the year of his birth, h 
inherited headaches from his mother, and a crooked figure from his 
father. A nurse who shared their care lived with him for many 
years, and was buried by him, with an affectionate epitaph, in 1725. 
The family tradition represents him as a sweet-tempered child, and 
says that he was called the " little nightingale " from the beauty of 
his voice. As the sickly, solitary, and precocious infant of elderly 
parents, we may guess that he was not a little spoilt, if only in the 
technical sense. 

The religion of the family made their seclusion from the world 
the more rigid, and by consequence must have strengthened their 
mutual adhesiveness. Catholics were then harassed by a legis- 
lation which would be condemned by any modern standard as in- 
tolerably tyrannical. Whatever apology may be urged for the 
legislators on the score of contemporary prejudices or special cir- 
cumstances, their best excuse is that their laws were rather in- 
tended to satisfy constituents, and to supply a potential means of 
defence, than to be carried into actual execution. It does not ap- 
pear that the Popes had to fear any active molestation in the quiet 
observance of their religious duties. Yet a Catholic was not only 
a member of a hated minority, regarded by the rest of his country- 
men as representing the evil principle in politics and religion, but 
was rigorously excluded from a public career, and from every 
position of honour or authority. In times of excitement the se- 
verer laws might be put in force. The public exercise of the 
Catholic religion was forbidden, and to be a Catholic was to be 
predisposed to the various Jacobite intrigues which still had many 
chances in their favour. When the Pretender was expected in 
1744, a proclamation, to which Pope thought it decent to pay 
obedience, forbade the appearance of Catholics within ten miles of 
London ; and in 1730 we find him making interest on behalf of a 
nephew, who had been prevented from becoming an attorney be- 
cause the judges were rigidly enforcing the oaths of supremacy and 
allegiance. 

The Catholics had to pay double taxes, and were prohibited 
from acquiring real property. The elder Pope, according to a cer- 
tainly inaccurate story, had a conscientious objection to investing 
his money in the funds of a Protestant government, and. therefore, 
having converted his capital into coin, put it in a strong-box, and 
took it out as he wanted it. The old merchant was not quite so 
helpless, for we know that he had investments in the French rentes, 
besides other sources of income ; but the story probably reflects 
the fact that his religious disqualifications hampered even his 
financial position. 

Pope's character was affected in many ways by the fact of his 



POPE. U 

belonging to a sect thus harassed and restrained. Persecution, 
like bodily infirmity, has an ambiguous influence. If it sometimes 
generates in its victims a heroic hatred of oppression, it sometimes 
predisposes them to the use of the weapons of intrigue and false- 
hood, by which the weak evade the tyranny of the strong. If 
under that discipline Pope learnt to love toleration, he was not un- 
touched by the more demoralising influences of a life passed in an 
atmosphere of incessant plotting and evasion. A more direct con- 
sequence was his exclusion from the ordinary schools. The spirit 
of the rickety lad might have been broken by the rough training of 
Eton or Westminster in those days ; as, on the other hand, he 
might have profited by acquiring a livelier perception of the mean- 
ing of that virtue of fair-play, the appreciation of which is held to 
be a set-off against the brutalising influences of our system of pub- 
lic education. As it Was, Pope was condemned to a desultory 
education. He picked up some rudiments of learning from the 
family priest ; he was sent to a school at Twyford, where he is said 
to have got into trouble for writing a lampoon upon his master ; he 
went for a short time to another in London, where he gave a more 
creditable if less characteristic proof of his poetical precocity. 
Like other lads of genius, he put together a kind of play — a com- 
bination, it seems, of the speeches in Ogilby's Iliad — and got it 
acted by his schoolfellows. These brief snatches of schooling, 
however, counted for little. Pope settled at home at the early age 
of twelve, and plunged into the delights of miscellaneous reading 
with the ardour of precocious talent. He read so eagerly that his 
feeble constitution threatened to break down, and when about 
seventeen, he despaired of recovery, and wrote a farewell to his 
friends. One of them, an Abbe Southcote, applied for advice to 
the celebrated Dr. Radcliffe, who judiciously prescribed idleness 
and exercise. Pope soon recovered, and, it is pleasant to add, 
showed his gratitude long afterwards by obtaining for Southcote, 
through Sir Robert Walpole, a desirable piece of French prefer- 
ment. Self-guided studies have their advantages, as Pope himself 
observed, but they do not lead a youth through the dry places of 
literature, or stimulate him to severe intellectual training. Pope 
seems to have made some hasty raids into philosophy and theology ; 
he dipped into Locke, and found him " insipid ; " he went through 
a collection of the controversial literature of the reign of James 1 1., 
which seems to have constituted the paternal library, and was al- 
ternately Protestant and Catholic, according to the last book which 
he had read. But it was upon poetry and pure literature that he 
flung himself with a genuine appetite. He learnt languages to get 
at the story, unless a translation offered an easier path, and fol- 
lowed wherever fancy led, " like a boy gathering flowers in the 
fields and woods." 

It is needless to say that he never became a scholar in the strict 
sense of the term. Voltaire declared that he could hardly read or 
speak a word of French ; and his knowledge of Greek would have 
satisfied Bentley as little as his French satisfied Voltaire. Yet he 



I2 POPE. 

must have been fairly conversant with the best known French 
literature of the time, and he could probably stumble through 
Homer with the help of a crib and a guess at the general meaning. 
He says himself that at this early period he went through all the 
best critics ; all the French, English and Latin poems of any 
name ; " Homer and some of the greater Greek poets in the origi- 
nal," and Tasso and Ariosto in translations. 

Pope, at any rate, acquired a wide knowledge of English 
poetry. Waller, Spenser and Dryden were, he says, his great 
favourites in the order named, till he was twelve. Like so many 
other poets, he took infinite delight in the Faery Queen; but Dry- 
den, the great poetical luminary of his own day, naturally exercised 
a predominant influence upon his mind. He declared that he had 
learnt versification wholly from Dryden's works, and always men- 
tioned his name with reverence. Many scattered remarks reported 
by Spense, and the still more conclusive evidence of frequent ap- 
propriation, show him to have been familiar with the poetry of the 
preceding century, and with much that had gone out of fashion in 
his time, to a degree in which he was probably excelled by none of 
his successors, with the exception of Gray. Like Gray, he contem- 
plated at one time the history of English poetry, which was in some 
sense executed by Warton. It is characteristic, too, that he early 
showed a critical spirit. From a boy, he says, he could distinguish 
between sweetness and softness of numbers — Dryden exemplify- 
ing softness, and Waller sweetness ; and the remark, whatever its 
value, shows that he had been analysing his impressions and re- 
flecting upon the technical secrets of his art. 

Such study naturally suggests the trembling aspiration, " I, too, 
am a poet." Pope adopts with apparent sincerity the Ovidian 
phrase, 

" As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, 
I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came." 

His father corrected his early performances, and, when not 
satisfied, sent him back with the phrase, " These are not good 
rhymes." He translated any passages that struck him in his read- 
ing, excited by the examples of Ogilby's Homer and Sandys' Ovid. 
His boyish ambition prompted him, before he was fifteen, to at- 
tempt an epic poem; the subject was Alcander, Prince of Rhodes, 
driven from his home by Deucalion, father of Minos ; and the 
work was modestly intended to emulate in different- passages the 
beauties of Milton, Cowley, Spenser, Statius, Homer, Virgil, Ovid, 
and Claudian. Four books of this poem survived for a long time, 
for Pope had a more than parental fondness for all the children of 
his brain, and always had an eye to possible reproduction. Scraps 
from this early epic were worked into the Essay on Criticism and 
the Dunciad. This couplet, for example, from the last work comes 
straight, we are told, from Alcander, — 

man's Mseanders t<> the vital spring 
Roll all their tides, then back their circles bring." 



POPE. 



1 3 



Another couplet, preserved by Spense, will give a sufficient 
taste of its quality : — 

" Shields, helms, and swords all jangle as they hang, 
And sound formidinous with angry clang." 

After this we shall hardly censure Atterbury for approving 
(perhaps suggesting) its destruction in later years. Pope long 
meditated another epic, relating the foundation of the English gov- 
ernment by Brutus of Troy, with a superabundant display of 
didactic morality and religion. Happily this dreary conception, 
though it occupied much thought, never came to the birth. 

The time soon came when these tentative flights were to be 
superseded by more serious efforts. Pope's ambition was directed 
into the same channel by his innate propensities, and by the acci- 
dents of his position. No man ever displayed a more exclusive 
devotion to literature, or was more tremblingly sensitive to the 
charm of literary glory. His zeal was never distracted by any 
rival emotion. Almost from his cradle to his grave his eye was 
fixed unremittingly upon the sole purpose of his life. The whole 
energies of his mind were absorbed in the struggle to place his 
name as high as possible in that temple of fame which he painted 
after Chaucer in one of his early poems. External conditions 
pointed to letters as the sole path to eminence, but it was precisely 
the path for which he had admirable qualifications. The sickly son 
of the Popish tradesman was cut off from the Bar, the Senate, and 
the Church. Physically contemptible, politically ostracised, and 
in a humble social position, he could yet win this dazzling prize 
and force his way with his pen to the highest pinnacle of contem- 
porary fame. Without adventitious favour, and in spite of manv 
bitter antipathies, he was to become the acknowledged head or.' 
English literature, and the welcome companion of all the most 
eminent men of his time. Though he could not forsee his career 
from the start, he worked as vigorously as if the goal had already 
been in sight ; and each successive victory in the field of letters 
was realised the more keenly from his sense of the disadvantages 
in face of which it had been won. In tracing his rapid ascent, we 
shall certainly find reason to doubt his proud assertion, — 

" That, if he pleased, he pleased by manly ways ; " 

but it is impossible for any lover of literature to grudge admiration 
to this singular triumph of pure intellect over external disadvan- 
tages, and the still more depressing influences of incessant phys- 
ical suffering. 

Pope had, indeed, certain special advantages which he was not 
slow in turning to account. In one respect even his religion helped 
him to emerge into fame. There was naturally a certain free- 
masonry amongst the Catholics allied by fellow-feeling under the 
general antipathy. The relations between Pope and his co-relig- 



14 



POPE. 



ionists exercised a material influence upon his later life. Within 
a few miles of Binfield lived the Blounts of Mapledurham, a fine 
old Elizabethan mansion on the banks of the Thames, near Read- 
ing, which had been held by a royalist Blount in the civil war 
against a parliamentary assault. It was a more interesting circum- 
stance to Pope that Mr. Lister Blount, the then representative of 
the family, had two fair daughters, Teresa and Martha, of about the 
poet's age. Another of Pope's Catholic acquaintances was John 
Caryll, of West Grinstead in Sussex, nephew of a Caryl] who had 
been the representative of James II. at the Court of Rome, and 
who followed his master into exile, received the honours of a titular 
peerage and held office in the melancholy court of the Pretender. 
In such circles Pope might have been expected to imbibe a Jacobite 
and Catholic horror of Whigs and freethinkers. In fact, however, 
he belonged from his youth to the followers of Gallio. and seems to 
have paid to religious duties just as much attention as would sat- 
isfy his parents. His mind was really given to literature : and he 
found his earliest patron in his immediate neighbourhood. This 
was Sir W. Trumbull, who had retired to his native village of 
Easthampstead in 1697, after being ambassador at the Porte under 
James II., and Secretary of State under William III. Sir William 
made acquaintance with the Popes, praised the father's artichokes, 
and was delighted with the precocious son. The old diplomatist 
and the young poet soon became fast friends, took constant rides 
together, and talked over classic and modern poetry. Pope made 
Trumbull acquainted with Milton's Juvenile poems, and Trumbull 
encouraged Pope to follow in Milton's steps. He gave, it seems, 
the first suggestion to Pope that he should translate Homer ; and 
he exhorted his young friend to preserve his health by flying from 
tavern company — tanquam ex incendio. Another early patron was 
William Walsh, a Worcestershire country gentleman of .fortune 
and fashion, who condescended to dabble in poetry after the man- 
ner of Waller, and to write remonstrances upon Celia's cruelty, 
verses to his mistress against marriage, epigrams, and pastoral 
eclogues. He was better known, however, as a critic, and had 
been declared by Dryden to be, without flattery, the best in the 
nation. Pope received from him one piece of advice which has 
become famous. We had had great poets— so said the "knowing 
Walsh," as Pope calls him — " but never one great poet that was 
correct; " and he accordingly recommended Pope to make correct- 
ness his great aim. The advice doubtless impressed the young 
man as the echo of his own convictions. Walsh died (1708) be- 
fore the effect of his suggestion had become fully perceptible. 

The acquaintance with Walsh was due to Wychcrley, who had 
submitted Pope's Pastorals to his recognised critical authority. 
Pope's intercourse with Wychcrley and another early friend, 
Henry Cromwell, had a more important bearing upon his early 
career. He kept up a correspondence with each of these friends, 
whilst he was still passing through his probationary period : and the 
letters, published long afterwards under singular circumstances to 



&GP&, 



n 



be hereafter related, give the tuiiest revelation of his character 
and position at tin's time. Both Wycherley and Cromwell were 
known to the Englefielos or Whiteknights, near Reading, a Cath- 
olic family, in which Pope first made the acquaintance of Martha 
Blount, whose mother was a daughter of the old Mr. Englefield of 
the day. It was possibly, therefore, through this connexion that 
Pope owed his first introduction to the literary circles of London. 
Pope, already thirsting for literary fame, was delighted to form a 
connexion which must have been far from satisfactory to his in- 
dulgent parents, if they understood the character of his new as- 
sociates. 

Henry Cromwell, a remote cousin of the Protector, is known 
to other than minute investigators of contemporary literature by 
nothing except his friendship with Pope. He was nearly thirty 
years older than Pope, and, though heir to an estate in the country, 
was at this time a gay, though elderly man, about town. Vague 
intimations are preserved of his personal appearance. Gay calls 
him " honest, hatless Cromwell with red breeches ; " and Johnson 
could learn about him the single fact that he used to ride a-hunting 
in a tie-wig. The interpretation of these outward signs may not 
be very obvious to modem readers ; but it is plain from other indi- 
cations that he was one of the frequenters of coffee-houses, aimed 
at being something of a rake and a wit, was on speaking terms with 
Dryden, and familiar with the smaller celebrities of literature, a 
regular attendant at theatres, a friend of actresses, and able to 
present himself in fashionable circles and devote complimentary 
verses to the reigning beauties at the Bath. When he studied the 
Spectator^ might recognise some of his features reflected in the 
portrait of Will Honeycomb. Pope was proud enough for the 
moment at being taken by the hand by this elderly buck, though, 
as Pope himself rose in the literary scale and could estimate liter- 
ary reputations more accurately, he became, it would seem, a little 
ashamed of his early enthusiasm, and, at any rate, the friendship 
dropped. The letters which passed between the pair during four 
or live years, down to the end of 171 1, show Pope in his earliest 
manhood. They are characteristic of that period of develop- 
ment in which a youth of literary genius takes literary fame in 
the most deliberately serious sense. Pope is evidently putting his 
best foot forward, and never for a moment forgets that he is a 
young author writing to a recognised critic — except, indeed, when 
he takes the airs of an experienced rake. We might speak of the 
absurd affectation displayed in the letters, were it not that such 
affectation is the most genuine nature in a clever boy. Unluckily, 
it became so ingrained in Pope as to survive his youthful follies. 
Pope complacently indulges in elaborate paradoxes and epigrams 
of the conventional epistolary style ; he is painfully anxious to be 
alternately sparkling and playful ; his head must be full of litera- 
ture ; he indulges in an elaborate criticism of Statius, and points 
out what a sudden fall that author makes at one place from extrava- 
gant bombast ; he communicates the latest efforts of his muse, and 



x6 POPE. 

tries, one regrets to say, to get more credit for precocity and origi- 
nality than fairly belongs to him; he accidentally alludes to his dug 
that lie may bring in a translation from the Odyssey, quote Plutarch, 
and introduce an anecdote which he has heard from Trumbull 
about Charles I. ; he elaborately discusses Cromwell's classical 
translations, adduces authorities, ventures to censure Mr. Rowe's 
amplification of Lucan, and, in this respect, thinks that Brebceuf, 
the famous French translator, is equally a sinner, and writes a long 
letter as to the proper use of the caesura and the hiatus in English 
verse. There are signs that the mutual criticisms became a little 
trying to the tempers of the correspondents. Pope seems to be in- 
clined to ridicule Cromwell's pedantry, and when he affects satis- 
faction at learning that Cromwell has detected him in appropriating 
a rondeau from Voiture, we feel that the tension is becoming seri- 
ous. Probably he found cut that Cromwell was not only a bit of a 
prig, but a person not likely to reflect much glory upon his friends, 
and the correspondence came to an end, when Pope found a better 
market for his wares. 

Pope speaks more than once in these letters of his country 
retirement, where he could enjoy the company of the muses, but 
where, on the other hand, he was forced to be grave and godly, 
instead of drunk and scandalous as he could be in town. The 
jolly hunting and drinking squires round Binfield thought him, he 
says, a well-disposed person, but unluckily disqualified for their 
rough modes of enjoyment by his sickly health. With them he 
has not been able to make one Latin quotation, but has learnt a 
song of Tom Durfey's, the sole representative of literature, it ap- 
pears, at the "toping-tables " of these thick-witted fox-hunters. 
Pope naturally longed for the more refined, or at least more fash- 
ionable indulgences of London life. Besides the literary affecta- 
tion, he sometimes adopts the more offensive affectation — unfor- 
tunately not peculiar to any period — of the youth who wishes to 
pass himself off as deep in the knowledge of the world. Pope, as 
may be here said once for all, could be at times grossly indecent ; 
and in these letters there are passages offensive upon this score, 
though the offence is far graver when the same tendency appears, 
as it sometimes does, in his letters to women. There is no proof 
that Pope was ever licentious in practice. He was probably more 
temperate than most of his companions, and could be accused of 
iewer lapses from strict morality than, for example, the excellent 
but thoughtless Steele. For this there was the very good reason 
that his "little, tender, crazy carcass," as Wycherley calls it, was 
utterly unfit for such excesses as his companions could practice 
with comparative impunity. He was bound under heavy penalties 
to be through life a valetudinarian, and such doses of wine as the 
respectable Addison used regularly to absorb would have brought 
speedy punishment. Pope's loose talk probably meant little enough 
in the way of active vice, though, as I have already said, Trumbull 
saw reasons for friendly warning. But some of his writings are 
stained by pruriency and downright obscenity ; whilst the sam» 



POPE. 



i? 



fault may be connected with a painful absence of that chivalrous 
feeling towards women which redeems Steele's errors of conduct 
in our estimate of his character. Pope always takes a low, some- 
times a brutal view of the relation between the sexes. 

Enough, however, has been said upon this point. If Pope 
erred, he was certainly unfortunate in the objects of his youthful 
hero-worship. Cromwell seems to have been but a pedantic 
hanger-on of literary circles. His other great friend, Wycherley, 
had stronger claims upon his respect, but certainly was not likely 
to raise his standard of delicacy. Wycherley was a relic of a past 
literary epoch. He was nearly fifty years older than Pope. His 
last play, the Plain Decile}-, had been produced in 1677, eleven 
years before Pope's birth. The Plain Dealer and the Country 
Wife, his chief performances, are conspicuous amongst the com- 
edies of the Restoration dramatists for sheer brutality. During 
Pope's boyhood he was an elderly rake about town, having squan- 
dered his intellectual as well as his pecuniary resources, but still 
scribbling bad verses and maxims on the model of Rochefoucauld. 
Pope had a very excusable, perhaps we may say creditable, enthu- 
siasm for the acknowledged representatives of literary glory. 
Before he was twelve years old he had persuaded some one to take 
him to Will's, that he might have a sight of the venerable Dryden; 
and in the first published letter* to Wycherley he refers to this 
brief glimpse, and warmly thanks Wycherley for some conver- 
sation about the elder poet. And thus, when he came to know 
Wycherley, he was enraptured with the honour. He followed the 
great man about, as he tells us, like a dog ; and, doubtless, re- 
ceived with profound respect the anecdotes of literary life which 
fell from the old gentleman's lips. Soon a correspondence began, 
in which Pope adopts a less jaunty air than that of his letters to 
Cromwell, but which is conducted on both sides in the laboured 
complimentary style which was not unnatural in the days when 
Congreve's comedy was taken to represent the conversation of 
fashionable life. Presently, however, the letters began to turn 
upon an obviously dangerous topic. Pope was only seventeen 
when it occurred to his friend to turn him to account as a literary 
assistant. The lad had already shown considerable powers of 
versification, and was soon employing them in the revision of some 
of the numerous compositions which amused Wycherley's leisure. 
It would have required, one might have thought, less than Wycher- 
ley's experience to foresee the natural end of such an alliance. 
Pope, in fact, set to work with great vigour in his favourite occu- 
pation of correcting. He hacked and hewed right and left ; omit- 
ted, compressed, rearranged, and occasionally inserted additions 
of his own devising. Wycherley's memory had been enfeebled by 
illness, and now played him strange tricks. He was in the habit 
of reading himself to sleep with Montaigne, Rochefoucauld, and 
Racine. Next morning he would, with entire unconsciousness, 

* The letter is, unluckily, of doubtful authenticity ; but.it represents Pope's probable 
sentiments. 



1 8 POPE. 

write down as his own the thoughts of his author, or repeat almost 
word for word some previous composition of his own. To remove 
such repetitions thoroughly would require a very free application 
of the knife, and Pope would not be slow to discover that he was 
wasting talents fit for original work in botching and tinkering a 
mass of rubbish. 

Any man of ripe years would have predicted the obvious con- 
sequences ; and, according to the ordinary story, those conse- 
quences followed. Pope became more plains-peaking, and at last 
almost insulting in his language. Wycherley ended by demanding 
the return of his manuscripts, in a letter showing his annoyance 
under a veil of civility; and Pope sent them back with a smart 
reply, recommending Wycherley to adopt a previous suggestion 
and turn his poetry into maxims after the manner of Rochefou- 
cauld. The "old scribbler," says Johnson, " was angry to see his 
pages defaced, and felt more pain from the criticism than content 
from the amendment of his faults." The story is told at length, 
and with his usual brilliance, by Macaulay, and has hitherto passed 
muster with all Pope's biographers ; and, indeed, it is so natural 
a story, and is so far confirmed by other statements of Pope, that 
it seems a pity to spoil it. And yet it must be at least modified, 
for we have already reached one of those perplexities which force 
a biographer of Pope to be constantly looking to his footsteps. 
So numerous are the contracditions which surround almost every 
incident of the poet's career, that one is constantly in danger of 
stumbling into some pitfall, or bound to cross it in gingerly fash- 
ion on the stepping-stone of a cautious "perhaps." The letters 
which are the authority for this story have undergone a manipula- 
tion from Pope himself, under circumstances to be hereafter 
noticed ; and recent researches have shown that a very false col- 
ouring has been put upon this as upon other passages. The nature 
of this strange perversion is a curious illustration of Pope's absorb- 
ing vanity. 

Pope, in fact, was evidently ashamed of the attitude which he 
had not unnaturally adopted to his correspondent. The first man 
of letters of his day could not bear to reveal the full degree in 
which he had fawned upon the decayed dramatist, whose inferiority 
to himself was now plainly recognised. He altered the whole 
tone of the correspondence by omission, and still worse by ad- 
dition. He did not publish a letter in which Wycherley gently re- 
monstrates with his young admirer for e.vcessive adulation ; he 
omitted from his own letters the phrase which, had provoked the 
remonstrance ; and, with more daring falsification, he manufactured 
an imaginary letter to Wycherley out of a letter really addressed to 
his friend Caryll. In this letter Pope had himself addressed to 
Caryll a remonstrance similar to that which he had received from 
Wycherley. When published as a letter to Wycherley, it gives the 
impression that Pope, at the age of seventeen, was already rejecting 
excessive compliments addresseittf) him by his experienced I 
Cy these audacious perversions of. the truth, Pope is enabled to 



POPE. 



19 



heighten his youthful independence, and to represent himself as al. 
ready exhibiting a graceful superiority to the reception or the oifer- 
rng of incense ; while he thus precisely inverts the relation which 
really existed between himself and his correspondent. 

The letters, again, when read with due attention to dates, shows 
that Wycherley's proneness to take offence has at least been ex- 
aggerated. Pope's services to Wycherley were rendered on two 
separate occasions. The first set of poems were corrected during 
1706 and 1707; and Wycherley, in speaking of this revision, far 
from showing symptoms of annoyance, speaks with gratitude of 
Pope's kindness, and returns the expression of good-will which ac- 
companied his criticisms. Both these expressions, and Wych- 
erley's acknowledgment of them, were omitted in Pope's publica- 
tion. More than two years elapsed, when (in April, 1710) Wych- 
erley submitted a new set of manuscripts to Pope's unflinching 
severity ; and it is from the letters which passed in regard to this 
last batch that the general impression as to the nature of the quar- 
rel has been derived. But these letters, again, have been mutilated, 
and so mutilated as to increase the apparent tartness of the mutual 
retorts ; and it must therefore remain doubtful how far the coolness 
which ensued was really due to the cause assigned. Pope, writing 
at the time to Cromwell, expresses his vexation at the difference, and 
professes himself unable to account for it, though bethinks that his 
corrections may have been the cause of the rupture. An alternative 
rumour,* it seems, accused Pope of having written some satirical 
verses upon his friend. To discover the rights and wrongs of the 
quarrel is now impossible, though, unfortunately, one thing is clear, 
namely, that Pope was guilty of grossly sacrificing truth in the in- 
terests of his own vanity. We may, indeed, assume, without much 
risk of error, that Pope had become too conscious of his own im- 
portance to find pleasure or pride in doctoring another man's 
verses. It must remain uncertain how far he showed this resent- 
ment to Wycherley openly, or gratified it by some covert means ; 
and how far, again* he succeeded in calming Wycherley's susepti- 
bility by his compliments, or aroused his wrath by more or less 
contemptuous treatment of his verses. 

A year after the quarrel, Cromwell reported that Wycherley 
had again been speaking in friendly terms of Pope, and Pope ex- 
pressed his pleasure with eagerness. He must, he said, be more 
agreeable to himself when agreeable to Wycherley, as the earth 
was brighter when the sun was less overcast. Wycherley, it may 
be remarked, took Pope's advice by turning some of his verses into 
prose maxims; and they seem to have been at last upon more or 
less friendly terms. The final scene of Wycherley's questionable 
career, some four years later, is given by Pope in a letter to his 
friend, Edward Blount. The old man, he says, joined the sacra- 
ments of marriage and extreme unction. By one he supposed him- 
self to gain some advantage of his soul; by the other, he had the 
pleasure of saddling his hated heir and nephew with the jointure of 

* See Elwin's Pnpe, vol. i. cxxxv. 



2 o POPE. 

his widow. When dying, lie begged his wife to grant him a last 
request, and, upon her consent, explained it to be that she would 
never again marry an old man. Sickness, says Pope in comment, 
often destroys wit and wisdom, but has seldom the power to re- 
move humour. Wycherley's joke, replies a critic, is contemptible ; 
and yet one feels that the death scene, with this strange mixture of 
cynicism, spite, and superstition, half redeemed by imperturbable 
good temper", would not be unworthy of a place in Wycherley's own 
school of comedy. One would wish that Pope had shown a little 
more perception of the tragic side of such a conclusion. 

Pope was still almost a boy when he broke with Wycherley ; 
but he was already beginning to attract attention, and within a sur- 
prisingly short time he was "becoming known as one of the first 
writers of the day. I must now turn to the poems by which this 
reputation was gained, and the incidents connected with their pub- 
lication. In Pope's life, almost more than in that of any other 
poet, the history of the author is the history of the man. 



POPE. 8 i 



CHAPTER II. 

FIRST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER 

Pope's rupture with Wycherley took place in the summer of 
1 710, when Pope, therefore, was just twenty-two. He was at this 
lime only known as the contributor of some small poems to a 
Miscellany. Three years afterwards (1713) he was receiving such 
patronage in his great undertaking, the translation of Homer, as to 
prove conclusively that he was regarded by the leaders of liter- 
ature as a poet of very high promise ; and two years later (171 5) 
the appearance of the first volume of his translation entitled him to 
rank as the first poet of the day. So rapid a rise to fame has had 
few parallels, and was certainly not approached until Byron woke 
and found himself famous at twenty-four. Pope was eager for the 
praise of remarkable precocity, and was weak and insincere enough 
to alter the dates of some of his writings in order to strengthen 
his claim. Yet, even when we accept the corrected accounts of 
recent enquirers, there is no doubt that lie gave proofs at a very 
early age of an extraordinary command of the resources of his art. 
It is still more evident that his merits were promptly and frankly 
recognised by his contemporaries. Great men and distinguished 
authors held out friendly hands to him ; and he never had to under- 
go, even for a brief period, the dreary ordeal of neglect through 
which men of loftier but less popular 'genius, have been so often 
compelled to pass. And yet it unfortunately happened that, even 
in this early time, when success followed success, and the youn»; 
man's irritable nerves might well have been soothed by the general 
chorus of admiration, he excited and returned bitter antipathies, 
some of which lasted through his life. 

Pope's works belong to three distinct periods. The transla- 
tion of Homer was the great work of the middle period of his life. 
In his later years he wrote the moral and satirical poems by which 
he is now best known. The earlier period, with which I have now 
to deal, was one of experimental excursions into various fields of 
poetry, with varying success and rather uncertain aim. Pope had 
already, as we have seen, gone through the process of " filling his 
basket." He had written the epic poem which happily found its 



22 



POPE. 



way into the flames. He had translated many passages that struck 
his fancy in the classics, especially considerable fragments of 
Ovid and Statius. Following Dryden, he had turned some of 
Chaucer into modern English ; and adopting a fashion which had 
not as yet quite died of inanition, he had composed certain pas- 
torals in the manner of Theocritus and Virgil. These early pro- 
ductions had been written under the eye of Trumbull ; they had 
been handed about in manuscript ; Wycherley, as already noticed, 
had shown them to Walsh, himself an offender of the same class. 
Granville, afterwards Lord Lansdowne, another small poet, read 
them, and professed to see in Pope another Virgil ; whilst Con- 
greve, Garth, Somers, Halifax, and other men of weight conde- 
scended to read, admire, and criticise. Old Tonson, who had pub- 
lished for Dryden, wrote a polite note to Pope, then only seven- 
teen, saying that he had seen one of the Pastorals in the hands of 
Congreve and Walsh, "which was extremely fine," and requesting 
the honour of printing it. Three years afterwards it accordingly 
appeared in Tonson's Miscellany, a kind of annual, of which the 
first numbers had been edited by Dryden. Such miscellanies more 
or less discharged the function of a modern magazine. The plan, 
said Pope to Wycherley, is very useful to the poets, " who, like 
other thieves, escape by getting into a crowd." The volume con- 
tained contributions from Buckingham, Garth, and Rowe ; it closed 
with Pope's Pastorals, and opened with another set of pastorals by 
Ambrose Philips — a combination which, as we shall see, led to 
one of Pope's first quarrels. 

The Pastorals have been seriously criticised ; but they are, in 
truth, mere school-boy exercises ; they represent nothing more 
than so many experiments in versification. The pastoral form 
had^ doubtless been used in earlier hands to embody true poetic 
feeling ; but in Pope's time it had become hopelessly threadbare. 
The fine gentlemen in wigs and laced coats amused themselves by 
writing about nymphs and " conscious swains," by way of asserting 
their claims to elegance of taste. Pope, as a boy, took the matter 
seriously, and always retained a natural fondness for a juvenile 
performance upon which he had expended great labour, and which 
was the chief proof of his extreme precocity. He invites attention 
to his own merits, and claims especially the virtue of propriety. 
He does not, he tells us, like some other people, make his roses 
and daffodils bloom in the same season, and cause his nightingales 
to sing in November ; and he takes particular credit for having re- 
membered that there were no wolves in England, and having ac- 
cordingly excised a passage in which Alexis prophesied that 
those animals would grow milder as they listened to the strains of 
his favourite nymph. When a man has got so far as to bring to 
England all the pagan deities, and rival shepherds contending for 
bowls and lambs in alternate strophes, these niceties seem a 
little out of place. After swallowing such a camel of an anachron- 
ism as is contained in the following lines, it is ridiculous to pride 
oneself upon straining at a gnat : — 



POPE. 



2 3 



Inspire me, says Slrephon, 

" Inspire me, Phoebus, in my Delia's praise 

With Waller's strains or Granville's moving lays 
A milk-white bull shall at your altars stand, 
That threats a fight, and spurns the rising sand." 

Granville would certainly not have felt more surprised at meeting 
a wolf than at seeing a milk-white bull sacrificed to Phcebus on the 
banks of the Thames. It would be a more serious complaint that 
Pope, who can thus admit anachronism as daring any of those 
which provoked Johnson in Lycidas, shows none of that exquisite 
feeling for rural scenery which is one of the superlative charms of 
Milton's early poems. Though country-bred, he talks of country 
sights and sounds as if he had been brought up at Christ's Hos- 
pital, and read of them only in Virgil. But, in truth, it is absurd 
to dwell upon such points. The sole point worth notice in the 
Pastorals is the general sweetness of the versification. Many 
corrections show how carefully Pope had elaborated those early 
lines, and by what patient toil he was acquiring the peculiar 
qualities of style in which he was to become pre-eminent. We 
may agree with Johnson that Pope performing upon a pastoral pipe 
is rather a ludicrous person, but for mere practice even nonsense 
verses have been found useful. 

The young gentleman was soon to give a far more characteristic 
specimen of his peculiar powers. Poets, according to the ordinary 
rule, should begin by exuberant fancy, and learn to prune and re- 
fine as the reasoning faculties develop^. P>ut Pope was from the 
first a conscious and deliberate artist. He had read the fashionable 
critics of his time, and had accepted their canons as an embodi- 
ment of irrefragable reason. His head was full of maxims, some 
of which strike us as palpable truisms, and others as typical speci- 
mens of wooden pedantry. Dryden had set the example of looking 
upon the French critics as authoritative lawgivers in poetry. Boi- 
leau's art of poetry was carefully studied, as bits of it were judici- 
ously appropriated, by Pope. Another authority was the great 
Bossu, who wrote in 1675 a treatise on epic poetry ; and the modern 
reader may best judge of the doctrines characteristic of the school 
by the naive pedantry with which Addison, the typical man of taste 
of his time, invokes the authority of Bossu and Aristotle, in his ex- 
position of Paradise Lost.* English writers were treacling in the 
steps of Boileau and Horace. Roscommon selected for a poem the 
lively topic of "translated verse;" and Sheffield had written with 
Dryden an essay upon satire, and afterwards a more elaborate essay 
upon poetry. To these masterpieces, said Addison, another master- 
piece was now added by Pope's Essay upon Criticism. Not only 
did Addison applaud, but later critics have spoken of their wonder 
at the penetration, learning, and taste exhibited by so young a 
man. The essay was carefully finished. Written apparently in 

* Any poet who followed Bossu's rules, said Voltaire, might be certain that no one 
would read him ; happily it was impossible to follow them. 



24 



POPE. 



1709, it was published in 1711. This was as short a time, said Pope 
to Spence, as he ever let anything of his lie by him; he no doubt 
employed it, according to his custom, in correcting and revising, 
and he had prepared himself by carefully digesting the whole in 
prose. It is, however, written without any elaborate logical plan, 
though it is quite sufficiently coherent for its purpose. The maxims 
on which Pope chiefly dwells are, for the most part, the obvious 
rules which have been the common property of all generations of 
critics. One would scarcely ask for originality in such a case, any 
more than one would desire a writer on ethics to invent new laws 
of morality. We require neither Pope nor Aristotle to tell us that 
critics should not be pert nor prejudiced ; that fancy should be reg- 
ulated by judgment ; that apparent facility comes by long training ; 
that the sound should have some conformity to the meaning; that 
genius is often envied; and that dulness is frequently beyond the 
reach of reproof. We might even guess, without the authority of 
Pope, backed by Bacon, that there are some beauties which can- 
not be taught by method, but must be reached " by a kind of feli- 
city." It is not the less interesting to notice Pope's skill in polish- 
ing these rather rusty sayings into the appearance of novelty. In 
a familiar line Pope gives us the view which he would himself 
apply in such cases. 

True wit is nature to advantage dress'd, 

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd." 

The only fair question, in short, is whether Pope has managed 
to give a lasting form to some of the floating commonplaces which 
have more or less suggested themselves to every writer. If we 
apply this test, we must admit that if the essay upon criticism does 
not show deep thought, it shows singular skill in putting old truths. 
Pope undeniably succeeded in hitting off many phrases of marked 
felicity. He already showed the power, in which he was probably 
unequalled, of coining aphorisms out of commonplace. Few people 
read the essay now, but everybody is aware that " fools rush in 
where angels fear to tread," and has heard the warning — 

A little learning is a dangerous thing, 
rink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:" 

maxims which may not commend themselves as strictly accurate to 
a scientific reasoner, but which have as much truth as one can de- 
mand from an epigram. And besides many sayings which share in 
some degree their merit, there are occasional passages which rise, 
at least, to the height of graceful rhetoric if they are scarcely to be 
called poetical. One simile was long famous, and was called by 
Johnson the best in the language. It is that in which the sanguine 
youth, overwhelmed by a growing perception of the boundlessness 
of possible attainments, is compared to the traveller crossing the 
mountains and seeing — 

Hills peep o'er hills and Alps on Alps arise." 



POPE. 



25 



The poor simile is pretty well forgotten, but is really a good speci- 
men of Pope's brilliant declamation, 

The essay, however, is not uniformly polished. Between the 
happier passages we have to cross stretches of flat prose twisted 
into rhyme; Pope seems to have intentionally pitched his style at 
a prosaic level as fitter for didactic purposes ; but besides this we 
here and there come upon phrases which are not only elliptical and 
slovenly, but defy all grammatical construction. This was a blemish 
to which Pope was always strangely liable. It was perhaps due in 
part to overcorrection, when the context was forgotten and the 
subject had lost its freshness. Critics, again, have remarked upon 
the poverty of the rhymes, and observed that he makes ten rhymes 
to " wit " and twelve to " sense." The frequent recurrence of the 
words is the more awkward because they are curiously ambiguous. 
" Wit " was beginning to receive its modern meaning; but Pope 
uses it vaguely as sometimes equivalent to intelligence in general, 
sometimes to the poetic faculty, and sometimes to the erratic fancy, 
which the true poet restrains by sense. Pope would have been 
still more puzzled if asked to define precisely what he meant by the 
antithesis between nature and art. They are somehow opposed, 
yet art turns out to be only " nature methodised." We have, in- 
deed, a clue for our guidance ; to study nature, we are told, is the 
same thing as to study Homer, and Homer should be read day and 
night, with Virgil for a comment and Aristotle for an expositor. 
Nature, good sense, Homer, Virgil, and the Stagyrite all, it seems, 
come to much the same thing. 

It would be very easy to pick holes in this very loose theory. 
But it is better to try to understand the point of view indicated ; 
for, in truth, Pope is really stating the assumptions which guided 
his whole career. No one' will accept his position at the present 
time ; but any one who is incapable of, at least, a provisional sym- 
pathy, may as well throw Pope aside at once, and with Pope most 
contemporary literature. 

The dominant figure in Pope's day was the Wit. The wit- 
taken personally — was the man who represented what we now de- 
scribe by culture or the spirit of the age. Bright, clear common 
sense was for once having its own way, and tyrannising over the 
faculties from which it too often suffers violence. The favoured 
faculty never doubted its own qualification for supremacy in every 
department. In metaphysics it was triumphing with Hobbes and 
Locke over the remnants of scholasticism; under Tillotson, it was 
expelling mystery from religion ; and in art it was declaring war 
against the extravagant, the romantic, the mystic, and the Gothic — 
a word then used as a simple term of abuse. Wit and sense are 
but different avatars of the same spirit ; wit was the form in which 
it showed itself in coffee-houses, and sense that in which it ap- 
peared in the pulpit or parliament. When Walsh told Pope to be 
correct, he was virtually advising him to carry the same spirit into 
poetry. The classicism of the time was the natural corollary ; for 
the classical models were the historical symbols of the movement 



2 6 POPE. 

which Pope represented. He states his view very tersely in the 
essay. Classical culture had been overwhelmed by the barbarians, 
and the monks " finished what the Goths began." Letters revived 
when the study of classical models again gave an impulse and sup- 
plied a guidance. 

' At length Erasmus, that great injured name, 
The glory of the priesthood and their shame, 
Stemm'd the wild torrent of a barbarous age, 
And drove these holy Vandals off the stage." 

The classicalism of Pope's time was no doubt very different 
from that of the period of Erasmus ; but in his view it differed only 
because the contemporaries of Dryden had more thoroughly dis- 
persed the mists of the barbarism which still obscured the Shak- 
spearean age, and from which even Milton or Cowley had not 
completely escaped. Dryden and Boileau and the French critics, 
with their interpreters, Roscommon, Sheffield, and Walsh, who 
found rules in Aristotle, and drew their precedents from Homer, 
were at last stating the pure canons of unadulterated sense. To 
this school wit, sense, and nature, and the classics, all meant 
pretty much the same. That was pronounced to be unnatural 
which was too silly, or too far-fetched, or too exalted, to approve 
itself to the good sense of a wit ; and the very incarnation and 
eternal type of good sense and nature was to be found in the clas- 
sics, The test of thorough polish and refinement was the power 
of ornamenting a speech with an appropriate phrase from Horace 
or Virgil, or prefixing a Greek motto to an essay in the Spectator. 
if it was necessary to give to any utterance an air of philosophical 
authority, a reference to Longinus or Aristotle was the natural 
device. Perhaps the acquaintance with classics might not be very 
profound ; but the classics supplied at least a convenient symbol 
for the spirit which had triumphed against Gothic barbarism and 
scholastic pedantry. 

Even the priggish wits of that day were capable of being bored 
by didactic poetry, and especially by such didactic poetry as re- 
solved itself too easily into a string of maxims not more poetical in 
substance than the immortal " s Tis a sin to steal a pin." The 
essay — published anonymously — did not make any rapid success 
till Pope sent round copies to well-known critics. Addison s praise 
and Dennis's abuse helped, as we shall presently see, to give it 
notoriety. Pope, however, returned from criticism to poetry, and 
his next performance was in some degree a fresh, but far less 
puerile, performance upon the pastoral pipe.* Nothing could be 
more natural than for the young poet to take for a text the forest 
in which he lived. Dull as the natives might be, their dwelling- 
place was historical, and there was an excellent precedent for such 
a performance. Pope, as we have seen, was familiar with Milton's 

* There is the usual contradiction as to the date of composition of Windsor Forest. 
Part seems to have been written early (Pope says 1704), and part certainly not before 
1712. 



POPE. 



27 



juvenile poems ; but such works as the Allegro and Penseroso were 
too full of the genuine country spirit to suit his probable audience. 
Wycherley, whom he frequently invited to come to Binfield, would 
undoubtedly have found Milton a bore. But Sir John Denham, a 
thoroughly masculine, if not, as Pope calls him, a majestic poet, was 
a guide whom the Wycherleys would respect. His Cooper's Hill 
(in 1642) was the first example of what Johnson calls local poetry 
— poetry, that is, devoted to the celebration of a particular place ; 
and, moreover, it was one of the early models of the rhythm which 
became triumphant in the hands of Dryden. One couplet is still 
familiar : 

" Though deep, yet clear ; though gentle, yet not dull ; 
Strong without rage ; without o'erflowing, full." 

The poem has some vigorous descriptive touches, but is in the 
main a forcible expression of the moral and political reflections 
which would be approved by the admirers of good sense in poetry. 
Pope's Windsor Forest, which appeared in the beginning of 
1 71 3, is closely and avowedly modelled upon this original. There 
is still a considerable infusion of the puerile classicism of the 
Pastorals, which contrasts awkwardly with Denham's strength, and 
a silly episode about the nymph Lodona changed into the river 
Loddon by Diana, to save her from the pursuit of Pan. But the 
style is animated, and the descriptions, though seldom original, 
show Pope's frequent felicity of language. Wordsworth, indeed, 
was pleased to say that Pope had here introduced almost the only 
" new images of internal nature " to be found between Milton and 
Thomson. Probably the good Wordsworth was wishing to do a 
little bit of excessive candour. Pope will not introduce his scenery 
without a turn suited to the taste of the town : — 

" Here waving groves a chequer'd scene display, 
And part admit and part exclude the day ; 
As some coy nymph her lover's fond address, 
Nor quite indulges nor can quite repress." 

He has some well-turned lines upon the sports of the forest, though 
they are clearly not the lines of a sportsman. They betray some- 
thing of the sensitive lad's shrinking from the rough squires whose 
only literature consisted of Durfey's songs, and who would have 
heartily laughed at his sympathy for a dying pheasant. I may 
observe in passing that Pope always showed the true poet's tender- 
ness for the lower animals, and disgust at bloodshed. He loved 
his dog, and said that he would have inscribed over his grave, " O 
rare Bounce," but for the appearance of ridiculing " rare Ben 
Johnson." He spoke with horror of a contemporary dissector of 
live dogs, and the pleasantest of his papers in the Guardian is a 
warm remonstrance against cruelty to animals. He " dares not " 
attack hunting, he says — and, indeed, such an attack requires some 
courage even at the present day — but he evidently has no sympa- 



28 POPE. 

thy with huntsmen, and has to borrow his description from Statins, 
which was hardly the way to get the true local colour. Windsor 
Forest, however, like Cooper's Hill, speedily diverges into historical 
and political reflections. The barbarity of the old forest laws, the 
poets Denham and Cowley and Surrey, who had sung on the banks 
of the Thames, and the heroes who made Windsor illustrious suggest 
obvious thoughts, put into verses often brilliant, though sometimes 
affected, varied by a compliment to Trumbull and an excessive 
eulogy of Granville, to whom the poem is inscribed. The whole is 
skilfully adapted to the time by a brilliant eulogy upon the peace 
which was concluded just as the poem was published. The Whig 
poet Tickell, soon to be Pope's rival, was celebrating the same 
" lofty theme " on his " artless reed," and introducing a pretty little 
compliment to Pope. To readers who have lost the taste for poetry 
of this class one poem may seem about as good as the other ; but 
Pope's superiority is plain enough to a reader who will condescend 
to distinguish. His verses are an excellent specimen of his de 
clamatory style — polished, epigrammatic, and well expressed ; and 
though keeping far below the regions of true poetry, preserving 
just that level which would commend them to the literary states- 
men and the politicians at Will's and Button's. Perhaps some 
advocate of Free Trade might try upon a modern audience the lines 
in which Pope expresses his aspiration in a foot-note that London 
may one day become a " Free Port." There is at least not one 
antiquated or obscure phrase in the whole. Here are half a dozen 
lines : — 

" The time shall come, when, free as seas and wind, 
Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind, 
Whole nations enter with each swelling tide, 
And seas but join the regions they divide ; 
Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold, 
And the new world launch forth to seek the old." 

In the next few years Pope found other themes for the display 
of his declamatory powers. Of the Temple of Fame (1715), a 
frigid imitation of Chaucer, I indeed only say that it is one of Pope's 
least successful performances : but I must notice more fully two 
rhetorical poems which appeared in 171 7. These were the Elegy 
to the Memory of an unfortunate Lady and the Eloisa to Abclard. 
Both poems, and especially the last, have received the warmest 
praises from Pope's critics, aud even from critics who were 
most opposed to his school. They are, in fact, his chief per- 
formances of the sentimental kind. Written in his youth, and 
yet when his powers of versification had reached their fullest 
maturity, they represent an element generally absent from his 
poetry. Pope was at the period in which, if ever, a poet should 
sing of love, and in which we expect the richest glow and fervour 
of youthful imagination. Pope was neither a Burns, nor a Byron, 
nor a Keats; but here, if anywhere, we should find those qualities 
in which he has most affinity to the poets of passion or of sensuous 



POPE. 



2 9 



emotion, not soured by experience or purified by reflection. The 
motives of the two poems were skilfully chosen. Pope — as has 
already appeared to some extent — was rarely original in his 
designs ; he liked to have the outlines at least drawn for him, to 
be filled with his own colouring. The Eloisa to Abelard was 
founded upon a translation from the French, published in 17 14 by 
Hughes (author of the Siege of Damascus), which is itself a ma- 
nipulated translation from the famous Latin originals. Pope, it 
appears, kept very closely to the words of the English translation, 
and in some places has done little more than versify the prose, 
though, of course, it is compressed, rearranged, and modified. 
The Unfortunate Lady has been the cause of a good deal of con- 
troversy. Pope's elegy implies, vaguely enough, that she had 
been cruelly treated by her guardians, and had committed suicide 
in some foreign country. The verses, as commentators decided, 
showed such genuine feeling, that the story narrated in them must 
have been authentic, and one of his own correspondents (Caryll) 
begged him for an explanation of the facts. Pope gave no answer, 
but left a posthumous note to an edition of his letters calculated, 
perhaps intended, to mystify future inquirers. The lady, a Mrs. 
Weston, to whom the note pointed, did not die till 1724, and could 
therefore not have committed suicide in 171 7. The mystification 
was childish enough, though, if Pope had committed no worse 
crime of the kind, one would not consider him to be a very 
grievous offender. The inquiries of Mr. Dilke, who cleared up 
this puzzle, show that there were, in fact, two ladies — Mrs. Weston 
and a Mrs. Cope — known, to Pope about this time,' both of whom 
suffered under some domestic persecution. Pope seems to have 
taken up their cause with energy, and sent money to Mrs. Cope 
when, at a later period, she was dying abroad in great distress. 
His zeal seems to have been sincere and generous, and it is 
possible enough that the elegy was a reflection of his feelings, 
though it suggested an imaginary state of facts. If this be so, the 
reference to the lady in his posthumous note contained some 
relation to the truth, though if taken too literally it would be mis- 
leading. 

The poems themselves are, beyond all doubt, impressive com- 
positions. They are vivid and admirably worked. " Here," says 
Johnson of the Eloisa to Abelard, the most important of the two, 
" is particularly observable the curiosa felicitas, a fruitful soil and 
careful cultivation. Here is no crudeness of sense, nor asperity of 
language." So far there can be no dispute. The style has the 
highest degree of technical perfection, and it is generally added 
that the poems are as pathetic as they are exquisitely written. 
Bowles, no hearty lover of Pope, declared the Eloisa to be " in- 
finitely superior to everything of the kind, ancient or modern." 
The tears shed, says Hazlitt of the same poem, "are drops gush- 
ing from the heart; the words are burning sighs breathed from the 
soul of love." And De Ouincey ends an eloquent criticism by 
declaring that the "lyrical tumult of the changes, the hope, the 



3 o POP& 

tears, the rapture, the penitence, the despair, place the reader is 
tumultuous sympathy with the poor distracted nun." The pathon 
of the Unfortunate Lady has been almost equally praised, and I 
may quote from it a famous passage which Mackintosh repeated 
with emotion to repel a charge of coldness brought against 
Pope : — 

" By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, 
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed, 
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd, 
By strangers honour'd and by strangers mourn'd! 
What though no friends in sable weeds appear, 
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year, 
And bear about the mockery of woe 
To midnight dances and the public show ? 
What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace, 
Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face ? 
What though no sacred earth allow thee room, 
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb?' 
Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be dress'd, 
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast ; 
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow, 
There the first roses of the year shall blow ; 
While angels with their silver wings o'ershade 
The ground, now sacred by thy reliques made." 

The more elaborate poetry of the Eloisa is equally polished 
throughout, and too much praise cannot easily be bestowed upon 
the skill with which the romantic scenery of the convent is in- 
dicated in th*e background, and the force with which Pope has 
given the revulsions of feeling of his unfortunate heroine from 
earthly to heavenly love, and from keen remorse to renewed gusts 
of overpowering passion. All this may be said, and without 
opposing high critical authority. And yet, I must also say, 
whether with or without authority, that I, at least, can read the 
poems without the least "disposition to cry," and that a single 
pathetic touch of Cowper or Wordsworth strikes incomparably 
deeper. And if I seek for a reason, it seems to be simply that 
Pope never crosses the undefinable, but yet ineffaceable, line 
which separates true poetry from rhetoric. The Eloisa ends 
rather flatly by one of Pope's characteristic aphorisms. " He 
best can paint them (the woes, that is, of Eloisa) who shall feel 
them most ; " and it is characteristic, by the way, that even in 
these his most impassioned verses, the lines which one remembers 
are of the same epigrammatic stamp, e. g. : 

"A heap of dust alone remains of thee, 
'Tis all thou art and all the proud shall be I 

" I mourn the lover, not lament the fault. 

" How happy is the blameless vestal's lot, 
The world forgetting, by the world forgot." 



POPE. 31 

The worker in moral aphorisms cannot forget himself even in 
the full swing of his fervid declamation. I have no doubt that Pope 
so far exemplified his own doctrine that he truly felt whilst he was 
writing. His feelings make him eloquent, but they do not enable 
him to " snatch a grace beyond the reach of art," to blind us for a 
moment to the presence of the consummate workman, judiciously 
blending his colours, heightening his effects, and skilfully manag- 
ing his transitions or consciously introducing an abrupt outburst 
of a new mood. The smoothness of the verses imposes monotony 
even upon the varying passions which are supposed to struggle in 
Eloisa's breast. It is not merely our knowledge that Pope is 
speaking dramatically which prevents us from receiving the same 
kind of impressions as we receive from poetry— such, for example, 
as some of Cowper's minor pieces — into which we know that a 
man is really putting his whole heart. The comparison would not 
be fair, for in such cases we are moved by knowledge of external 
facts as well as by the poetic power. But it is simply that Pope 
always resembles an orator whose gestures are studied, and who 
thinks, while he is speaking, of the fall of his robes and the 
attitude of his hands. He is throughout academical ; and though 
knowing with admirable nicety how grief. should be represented, 
and what have been the expedients of his best predecessors, he 
misses the one essential touch of spontaneous impulse. 

One other blemish is perhaps more fatal to the popularity of 
the Eloisa. There is a taint of something unwholesome and 
effeminate. Pope, it is true, is only following the language of the 
original in the most offensive passages ; but we see too plainly 
that he has dwelt too fondly upon those passages, and worked 
them up with especial care. We need not be prudish in our judg- 
ment of impassioned poetry ; but when the passion has this false 
ring, the ethical coincides with the aesthetic objection. 

I have mentioned these poems here, because they seem to be 
the development of the rhetorical vein which appeared in the 
earlier work. But I have passed over another work which has 
sometimes been regarded as his masterpiece. A Lord Petre had 
offended a Miss Fermor by stealing a lock of her hair. She 
thought that he showed more gallantry than courtesy, and some 
unpleasant feeling resulted between the families. Pope's friend, 
Caryll, thought that it might be appeased if the young poet would 
turn the whole affair into friendly ridicule. Nobody, it might well 
be supposed, had a more dexterous touch ; and a brilliant trifle 
from his hands, just fitted for the atmosphere of drawing-rooms, 
would be a convenient peace-offering, and was the very thing in 
which he might be expected to succeed. Pope accordingly set to 
work at a dainty little mock-heroic, in which he describes, in playful 
mockery of the conventional style, the fatal coffee-drinking at 
Hampton, in which the too daring peer appropriated the lock. 
The poem received the praise which it well deserved ; for cer- 
tainly the young poet had executed his task to a nicety. No more 
brilliant, sparkling, vivacious trifle is to be found in our literature 



32 POPE. 

than the Rape of the Lock, even in this early form. Pope re- 
ceived permission from the lady to publish it in Lintofs Miscellany 
in 1 71 2, and a wider circle admired it, though it seems that the 
lady and her family began to think that young Mr. Pope was 
making rather too free with her name. Pope meanwhile, animated 
by his success, hit upon a singularly happy conception, by which 
he thought that the poem might be rendered more important. The 
solid critics of those days were much occupied with the machinery 
of epic poems; the machinery being composed of the gods and 
goddesses who, from the days of Homer, had attended to the for- 
tunes of heroes. He had hit upon a curious French book, the 
Comte de Gabalis, which professes to reveal the mysteries of the 
Rosicrucians, and it occurred to him that the elemental sylphs and 
gnomes would serve his purpose admirably. He spoke of his new 
device to Addison, who administered — and there is not the slight- 
est reason for doubting his perfect sincerity and good meaning — a 
little dose of cold water. The poem, as it stood, was a " delicious 
little thing " — merum sal — and it would be a pity to alter it. Pope, 
however, " adhered to his plan, made a splendid success, and 
thought that Addison must have been prompted by some mean 
motive. The Rape of the Lock appeared in its new form, with 
sylphs and gnomes, and an ingenious account of a game at cards 
and other improvements, in 17 14. Pope declared, and critics have 
agreed, that he never showed more skill than in the remodelling 
of this poem ; and it has ever since held a kind of recognised su- 
premacy amongst the productions of the drawing-room muse. 

The reader must remember that the so-called heroic style of 
Pope's period is now hopelessly effete. No human being would 
care about machinery and the rules of Bossu, or read without utter 
weariness the mechanical imitations of Homer and Virgil which 
were occasionally attempted by the Blackmores and other less 
ponderous versifiers. The shadow grows dim with the substance. 
The burlesque loses its point when we care nothing for the orig- 
inal; and, so far, Pope's bit of filigree-work, as Hazlitt calls it, has 
become tarnished. The very mention of beaux and belles sug- 
gests the kind of feeling with which we disinter fragments of old- 
world finery from the depths of an ancient cabinet, and even the 
wit is apt to sound wearisome. And further, it must be allowed 
to some hostile critics that Pope has a worse defect. The poem 
is, in effect, a satire upon feminine frivolity. It continues the 
strain of mockery against hoops and patches and their wearers, 
which supplied Addison and his colleagues with the materials of 
so many Spectators. I think that even in Addison there is some- 
thing which rather jars upon us. His persiflage is full of humour 
and kindliness, but underlying it there is a tone of superiority to 
women which is sometimes offensive. It is taken for granted that 
a woman is a fool, or at least should be flattered if any man con- 
descends to talk sense to her. With Pope this tone becomes 
harsher, and the merciless satirist begins to show himself. In 
truth, Pope can be inimitably pungent, but he can never be simply 



POPE. 23 

playful. Addison was too condescending with his pretty pupils ; 
but under Pope's courtesy there lurks contempt, and his smile has 
a disagreeable likeness to a sneer. If Addison's manner some- 
times suggests the blandness of a don who classes women with the 
inferior beings unworthy of the Latin grammar, Pope suggests the 
brilliant wit whose contempt has a keener edge from his resent- 
ment against fine ladies blinded to his genius by his personal de- 
formity. 

Even in his dedication, Pope, with unconscious impertinence, 
insults his heroine for her presumable ignorance of his critical jar- 
gon. His smart epigrams want but a slight change of tone to be- 
come satire. It is the same writer who begins an essay on women's 
characters by telling a woman that her sex is a compound of 

" Matter too soft a lasting mask to bear ; 
And best distinguished by black, brown, or fair," 

and communicates to her the pleasant truth that 
" Every woman is at heart a rake." 

Women, in short, are all frivolous beings, whose one genuine in- 
terest is in love-making. The same sentiment is really implied in 
the more playful lines in the Rape of the Lock. The sylphs are 
warned by omens that some misfortune impends ; but they don't 
know what. 

" Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, 
Or some frail china jar receive a flaw ; 
Or stain her honour or her new brocade, 
Forget her prayers or miss a masquerade ; 
Or lose her heart or necklace at a ball, 
Or whether heaven has doom'd that Shock must fall." 

We can understand that Miss Fermor would feel such raillery 
to be equivocal. It may be added, that an equal want of delicacy 
is implied in the mock-heroic battle at the end, where the ladies 
are gifted with an excess of screaming power : — 

" ' Restore the lock ! ' she cries, and all around 
' Restore the lock,' the vaulted roofs rebound — 
Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain 
Roar'd for the handkerchief that caused his pain." 

These faults, though far from trifling, are yet felt only as blem- 
ishes in the admirable beauty and brilliance of the poem. The 
successive scenes are given with so firm and clear a touch — there 
is such a sense of form, the language is such a dexterous elevation 
of the ordinary social twaddle into the mock-heroic, that it is im- 
possible not to recognise a consummate artistic power. The daz- 
zling display of true wit and fancy blinds us for the time to the 
want of that real tenderness and humour which would have soft- 
ened some harsh passages, and given a more enduring charm to 



34 POPE. 

the poetry. It has, in short, the merit that belongs to any work of 
art which expresses in the most finished form the sentiment char- 
acteristic of a given social phase ; one deficient in many of the 
most ennobling influences, but yet one in which the arts of converse 
represent a very high development of shrewd sense refined into 
vivid wit. And we may, I think, admit that there is some founda- 
tion for the genealogy that traces Pope's Ariel back to his more 
elevated ancestor in the Tempest. The later Ariel, indeed, is re- 
garded as the soul of a coquette, and is almost an allegory of the 
spirit of poetic fancy in slavery to polished society. 

" Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain 
While clogg'd he beats his silken wings in vain." 

Pope's Ariel is a parody of the ethereal being into whom Shak- 
speare had refined the ancient fairy ; but it is a parody which still 
preserves a sense of the delicate and graceful. The ancient race, 
which appeared for the last time in this travesty of the fashion of 
Queen Anne, still showed some touch of its ancient beauty. Since 
that time no fairy has appeared without being hopelessly childish 
or affected. 

Let us now turn from the poems to the author's personal career 
during the same period. In the remarkable autobiographic poem 
called the Epistle to Arbuthnot, Pope speaks of his early patrons 
and friends, and adds — 

" Soft were my numbers ; who could take offence 
When pure description held the place of sense ? 
Like gentle Fanny's was my flow'ry theme, 
A painted mistress or a purling stream. 
Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill — 
I wish'd the man a dinner, and sat still. 
Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret ; 
I never answer'd, — I was not in debt." 

Pope's view of his own career suggests the curious problem = 
how it came to pass that so harmless a man should be the butt of 
so many hostilities ? How could anv man be angry with a writer 
of gentle pastorals and versified love-letters ? The answer of Pope 
was, that this was the normal state of things. " The life of a wit,' 
he says, in the preface to his works, "is a warfare upon earth ; " 
and the warfare results from the hatred of men of genius natural 
to the dull. Had any one else made such a statement, Pope would 
have seen its resemblance to the complaint of the one reasonable 
juryman overpowered by eleven obstinate fellows. But we may 
admit that an intensely sensitive nature is a bad qualification for a 
public career. A man who ventures into the throng of competitors 
without a skin will be tortured by every touch, and suffer the more 
if he turns to retaliate. 

Pope's first literary performances had not been so harmless as 
he suggests. Amongst the minor men of letters of the day was 



POPE. 



the surly John Dennis. He was some thirty years Pope's senior ■ 
a writer of dreary tragedies which had gained a certa n s^cces In- 
their Whiggiah tendencies, and of ponderous disquisitions unon 
crit.ca questions, not much cruder in substance thS heayieH 
form than many utterances of Addison or Steele, h! coSd how 
ever, snarl out some shrewd things when provoked ,nd,!!i 
to the most famous wits of the clay H Thld carZt " I 5 °Zu 
Dgden, Congreve, and Wycher,e ^nd^hsnT^ e° ^the 

In mere ™S ? ° f **T in which Dennis lost W« temper. 

"? > ou thful impertinence he introduced an offensive touch J 

Suw^et^o^^;-" "°" ld be " d, -" e -* « 

"But Appi-is reddens at each word you speaW 
And stares, tremendous, with a threaten ' 

Like sonic fierce tyrant at old tapesf- 

ti-. „o«, D <\ r i . - tragedy of Apfiim and 

1 lie name Appius referred to Derur 1 u ±u t , <\ * 
r^ m '-^ ., • ,, , c iblely by the fact that poor 

Virginia, a piece now recollect/ \ c A t . j 

n<,«„: t, ^ • * j c ^ ..Junder for the performance ; and 

Dennis had invented some rif. I, . c u i « i 

by his piteous compb^ ^'» st the ac or f for afterwards "steal- 
ing his thunder'' had f^d a proverbial expression Pope's ref- 
erence stuns- Dei"' IS to the q ulck - He replied by a savage 
pamhhlct n' iJJ,Vl ? Pope's essay to pieces, and hitting some real 
b] org ., i-„i' diverging into the coarsest personal abuse. Not content 
„ith saying in his preface that he was attacked with the utmost 
falsehood and calumny by a little affected hypocrite, who had 
nothing in his mouth but truth, candour, and good nature, he re- 
viled Pope for his personal defects ; insinuated that he was a 
hunch-backed toad ; declared that he was the very shape of the 
bow of the god of love ; that he might be thankful that he was born 
a modern, for, had he been born of Greek parents, his life would 
have been no longer than that of one of his poems, namely, half a 
day; and that his outward form, however like a monkey's, could 
not deviate more from the average of humanity than his mind. 
These amenities gave Pope his first taste of good, savage, slashing 
abuse. The revenge was out of all proportion to the offence. 
Pope, at first, seemed to take the assault judiciously. He kept 
silence, and simply marked some of the faults exposed by Dennis 
for alteration. But the wound rankled, and when an opportunity 
presently offered itself, Pope struckxsavagely at his enemy. To 
show how this came to pass, I must rise from poor old Dennis to a 
more exalted literary sphere. 

The literary world, in which Dryden had recently been, and 
pope was soon to be, the most conspicuous figure, was for the 



36 



POPE. 



present under the mild dictatorship of Addison. We know Addi- 
son as one of the most kindly and delicate humourists, and we can 
perceive the gentleness which made him one of the most charming 
of companions in a small society. His sense of the ludicrous save^ 
him from the disagreeable ostentation of powers which were never, 
applied to express bitterness of feeling or to edge angry satire. 
The reserve of his sensitive nature made access difficult, but he 
was so transparently modest and unassuming that his shyness was 
not, as is too often the case, mistaken for pride. It is easy to un- 
derstand the posthumous affection which Macaulay has so elo- 
quently expressed, and the contemporary popularity which accord- 
in- to Swift, would have made people unwilling to refuse him had 
he & asked to be king. And yet 1 think that one cannot read Addi- 
son's praises without a certain recalcitration, like that_ which one 
<-els in the case of the model boy who wins all the prizes, includ- 
a vttat for good conduct. It is hard to feel very enthusiastic about 
decoru.whose dictates coincide so precisely with the demands of 
cess Pond which leads by so easy a path to reputation and suc- 
a man avoid &Y is more often significant of the tact which makes 

ous 'nature. A ^offence, ^ <? f the ™™ '^^lul^tohe 
hated, if not to hate, man who mixes with the world oug ht to be 
sive goodness, Addison ^whatever we may say agains t 1 i exces- 

i • r • i "tared and received universal esteem, 

which in some cases became V-"- * . . * . „,„„„_♦ uil 

j • 4l i , 'husiastic. Foremost amongst nis 

admirers was the warm-hearted,^ 1 ' 1 ., - . , o c f „Ju ti,„ 
. i t • i j . .1 "Moss, impetuous bteele, the 

typical Irishman ; and amongst other m tlIfaprs l of his Httle se nate 
-as Pope called it— were Ambrose Ph,v^ Sand ,. ^ young men 
of letters and sound Whig politics, and more 0l j t _ com p e titors 
of Pope in literature. When Pope was first be^„.; ri , r Vnown in 
London the Whigs were out of power; Addison and to* !>i en rjs 
were generally to be found at Button's Coffee-house in the av, jr _ 
noon, and were represented to the society of the time by the 
Spectator, which began in March, 1711, and appeared daily to the 
end of 1 71 2. Naturally, the young Pope would be anxious to ap- 
proach this famous clique, though his connexions lay, in the first 
instance, amongst the Jacobite and Catholic families. Steele, too, 
would be glad to welcome so promising a contributor to the Spec- 
tator and its successor, the Guardian. 

Pope, we may therefore believe, was heartily delighted when, 
some months after Dennis's attack, a notice of his Essay upon 
Criticism appeared in the Spectator, December 20, 1711. The 
reviewer censured some attacks upon contemporaries — a reference 
obviously to the lines upon Dennis — which the author had admitted 
into his "very fine poem;" but there were compliments enough 
to overbalance this slight reproof. Pope wrote a letter of at know] 
edgment to Steele, overflowing with the sincerest gratitude of a 
young poet on his first recognition by a high authority. Steele, in 
reply, disclaimed the article, and promised to introduce Pope to 
its real author, the great Addison himself. It does not seem that 
the acquaintance thus opened with the Addisonians ripened very 



POPE. 37 

rapidly, or led to any considerable results. Pope, indeed, is said 
to. have written some" Spectators. He certainly sent to Steele his 
Messiah, a sacred eclogue in imitation of Virgil's Pollio, It ap- 
peared on May 14, 171 2, and is one of Pope's dexterous pieces of 
workmanship, in which phrases from Isaiah are so strung together 
?§ to form a good imitation of the famous poem which was once 
supposed to entitle Virgil to some place among the inspired heralds 
of Christianity. Pope sent another letter or two to Steele, which 
look very much like intended contributions to the Spectator, and a 
short letter about Hadrian's verses to his soul, which appeared in 
November, 1712. When, ii. 1713, the Guardian succeeded the 
Spectator, Pope was one of Steele's contributors, and a paper by 
him upon dedications appeared as the fourth number. He soon 
gave a more remarkable proof of his friendly relations with Addi- 
son. 

It is probable that no first performance of a play upon the 
English stage ever excited so much interest as that of Addison's 
Cato. It was not only the work of the first man of letters of the 
day, but it had, or was taken to have, a certain political significance. 
" The time was come." says Johnson, " when those who affected to 
think liberty in danger, affected likewise to think that a stage-play 
might preserve it." Addison, after exhibiting more than the usual 
display of reluctance, prepared his play for representation, and it 
was undoubtedly taken to be in some sense a Whig manifesto. It 
was, therefore, remarkable that he should have applied to Pope for 
a prologue, though Pope's connexions were entirely of the anti- 
Whiggish kind, and a passage in Windsor Forest, his last new 
poem (it appeared in March, 1 7 1 3) , indicated pretty plainly a re- 
fusal to accept the Whig shibboleths. In the Forest he was 
enthusiastic for the peace, and sneered at the Revolution. Pope 
afterwards declare 1 that Addison had disavowed all party inten- 
tions at the time, and he accused him of insincerity for afterwards 
taking credit (in a poetical dedication of Cato) for the services 
rendered by his play to the cause of liberty. Pope's assei>tion is 
worthless in any case where he could exalt his own character for 
consistency at another man's expense, but it is true that both par- 
ties were inclined to equivocate. Is is, indeed, difficult to under- 
stand how, if any " stage-play could preserve liberty," such a play 
as Cato should do the work. The polished declamation is made up 
of the platitudes common to Whigs and Tories ; and Bolingbroke 
gave the cue to his own party when he presented fifty guineas to 
Cato's representatives for defending the cause of liberty so well 
against a perpetual dictator. The Whigs, said Pope, design a 
second present when they can contrive as good a saying. Boling- 
broke was, of course, aiming at Marlborough, and his interpreta- 
tion was intrinsically as plausible as any that could have been de- 
vised by his antagonist. Each side could adopt Cato as easilv as 
rival sects can quote the Bible ; and it seems possible that Addi- 
son may have suggested to Pope that nothing in Cato could really 
offend his principles. Addison, as Pope also tells us thought the 



3 g POPE. 

prologue ambiguous, and altered u Britons, arise ! " to " Britons, 
attend!''* lest the phrase should be thought to hint at a new revolu- 
tion. Addison advised Pope about this time not to be content 
with the applause of " half the nation," and perhaps regarded him as 
one who, by the fact of his external position with regard to parties, 
would be a more appropriate sponsor for the play. 

Whatever the intrinsic significance of Cato, circumstances gave 
it a political colour ; and Pope, in a lively description of the first 
triumphant night to his friend Caryll, says, that as author of the 
successful and very spirited prologue, he was clapped into a Whig, 
sorely against his will, at every two lines. Shortly before, he had 
spoken in the warmest terms to the same correspondent of the 
admirable moral tendency of the work ; and perhaps he had not 
realised the full party significance till he became conscious of the 
impression produced upon the audience. Not long afterwards 
(letter of June 12, 1713) we find him complaining that his connexion 
with Steele and the Guardian was giving offence to some honest 
Jacobites. Had they known the nature of the connexion, they need 
hardly have grudged Steele his contributor. His next proceedings 
possibly suggested the piece of advice which Addison gave to Lady 
M. W. Montagu: " Leave Pope as soon as you can; he will cer- 
tainly play you some devilish trick else." 

His first trick was calculated to vex an editor's soul. Ambrose 
Philips, as I have said, had published certain pastorals in the same 
volume with Pope's. Philips, though he seems to have been less 
rewarded than most of his companions, was certainly accepted as 
an attached member of Addison's ''little senate;" and that body 
was not more free than other mutual admiration societies from the 
desire to impose its own prejudices upon the public. When 
Philips's Distressed Mother, a close imitation of Racine's Andr<h 
inaqm\ was preparing for the stage, the Spectator was taken by 
Will Honeycomb to a rehearsal {Spectator, January 31, i/i-), and 
Sir Roger de Coverley himself attended one of the jjerformar.ces 
(lb., March 25), and was profoundly affected by its pathos. The 
last paper was of course by Addison, and is a real triumph of art as 
a most delicate application of humour to the slightly unworthy 
purpose of puffing a friend and disciple. Addison had a^ain praised 
Philips's Pastorals in (lie Spectator (October 30, 1712); and 
amongst the early numbers of the Guardian were a short series of 
papers upon pastoral poetry, in which the fortunate Ambrose was 
again held up as a model, whilst no notice was taken of Pope's 
rival performance. Pope, one may believe, had a contempt for 
Philips, whose pastoral inanities, whether better or worse than his 
own, had not the excuse of being youthful productions. Philips 
has bequeathed to our language the phrase "Namby-pamby,'' im- 
posed upon him by Henry Carey (author of Sal!}' in our Alley, and 
the clever farce Chrononhotonthologos), and years after this he 
Wrote a poem to Miss Pulteney in the nursery, beginning, — 

" Dimply damsel, sweetly smiling," 



POPE. 



39 



which may sufficiently interpret the meaning of his nickname. 
Pope's irritable vanity was vexed at the liberal praises bestowed 
on such a rival, and he revenged himself by an artifice more in- 
genious than scrupulous. He sent an anonymous article to Steele for 
the Guardian. It is a professed continuation of the previous papers 
on pastorals, and is ostensibly intended to remove the appearance of 
partiality arising from the omission of Pope's name. In the first 
paragraphs the design is sufficiently concealed to mislead an unwary 
reader into the belief that Philips is preferred to Pope ; but the 
irony soon becomes transparent, and Philips's antiquated affectation 
is contrasted with the polish of Pope, who is said even to "deviate 
into downright poetry." Steele, it is said, was so far mystified as 
to ask Pope's permission to publish the criticism. Pope gener- 
ously permitted, and, accordingly, Steele printed what he must soon 
have discovered to be a shrewd attack upon his old friend and ally. 
Some writers have found a difficulty in understanding how Steele 
could have so blundered. One might, perhaps, whisper in confi- 
dence to the discreet, that even editors are mortal, and that Steele 
was conceivably capable of the enormity of reading papers care- 
lessly. Philips was furious, and hung up a birch in Button's Cof- 
fee-house, declaring that he would apply it to his tormentor should 
he ever show his nose in the room. As Philips was celebrated for 
skill with the sword, the mode of vengeance was certainly unmanly, 
and stung the soul of his adversary, always morbidly sensitive to all 
attacks, and especially to attacks upon his person. The hatred 
thus kindled was never quenched, and breathes in some of Pope's 
bitterest lines. 

If not a "devilish trick," this little performance was enough to 
make Pope's relations to the Addison set decidedly unpleasant. Ad- 
dison is said (but the story is very improbable) to have enjoyed 
the joke. If so, a vexatious incident must have changed his view 
of Pope's pleasantries, though Pope professedly appeared as his 
defender. Poor old Thersites-Dennis published, during the sum- 
mer, a very bitter attack upon Addison's Cato. He said after- 
wards—though, considering the relations of the men, some mis- 
understanding is probable— that Pope had indirectly instigated this 
attack through the bookseller, Lintot. If so, Pope must have de- 
liberately contrived the trap for the unlucky Dennis ; and, at any 
rate, he fell upon Dennis as soon as the trap was sprung. Though 
Dennis was a hot-headed Whig, he had quarrelled with Addison 
and Steele, and was probably jealous, as the author of tragedies 
intended, like Cato, to propagate Whig principles, perhaps to turn 
Whig prejudices to account. He writes with the bitterness of a 
disappointed and unlucky man, but he makes some very fair points 
against his enemy. Pope's retaliation took the form of an anony- 
mous " Narrative of the Frenzy of John Dennis." * It is written in 
that style of coarse personal satire of which Swift was a master, but 

* Mr. Dilke, it is perhaps right to say, has given tome reasons for doubting Pope's 
authorship of this squib ; but the authenticity seems to be established, and Mr. Dilke 
himself hesitates. 



4 o POPE. 

for which Pope was very ill fitted. All his neatness of style seems 
to desert him when lie tries this tone, and nothing is left but a 
brutal explosion of contemptuous hatred. Dennis is described in 
his garret, pouring forth insane ravings prompted by his disgust at 
the success of Cato; but not a word is said in reply to Dennis's 
criticisms. It was plain enough that the author, whoever he might 
be, was more anxious to satisfy a grudge against Dennis than to 
defend Dennis's victim. It is not much of a compliment to Addi- 
son to say that he had enough good feeling to scorn such a mode 
of retaliation, and perspicuity enough to see that it would be little 
to his credit. Accordingly in his majestic way, he caused Steele to 
write a note to Lintot (August 4, 1713), disavowing all complicity, 
ana -saying that if even he noticed Mr. Dennis's criticisms, it should 
be in such a way as to give Mr; Dennis no cause of complaint. He 
added that he had refused to see the pamphlet when it was offered 
for his inspection, and had expressed his disapproval of such a 
mode of attack. Nothing could be more becoming ; and it does 
not appear that Addison knew, when writing this note, that Pope 
was the author of the anonymous assault. If, as the biographers 
say, Addison's action was not kindly to Pope, it was bare justice to 
poor Dennis. Pope undoubtedly must have been bitterly vexed at 
the implied rebuff, and not the less because it was perfectly just. 
He seems always to have regarded men of Dennis's type as out- 
side the pale of humanity. Their abuse stung him as keenly as if 
they had been entitled to speak with authority, and yet he retorted 
it as though they were not entitled to common decency. He would, 
to all appearance, have regarded an appeal for mercy to a Grub- 
street author much as Dandie Dinmont regarded Brown's tender- 
ness to a " brock " — as a proof of incredible imbecility, or, rather, 
of want of proper antipathy to vermin. Dennis, like Philips, was 
inscribed on the long list of his hatreds ; and was pursued almost 
to the end of his unfortunate life. Pope, it is true, took great 
credit to himself for helping his miserable enemy when dying in dis- 
tress, and wrote a prologue to a play acted for his benefit. Yet 
even this prologue is a sneer, and one is glad to think that Dennis 
was past understanding it. We hardly know whether to pity or to 
condemn the unfortunate poet, whose unworthy hatreds made him 
suffer far worse torments than those which he could inflict upon 
their objects. 

By this time we may suppose that Pope must have been 
regarded with anything but favour in the Addison circle; and, in 
fact, he was passing into the opposite camp, and forming a friend- 
ship with Swift and Swift's patrons. No open rupture followed 
with Addison for the present; but a quarrel was approaching 
which is, perhaps, the most celebrated in our literary history. Un- 
fortunately, the more closely we look, the more difficult it becomes 
to give any definite account of it. The statements upon which 
accounts have been based have been chiefly those of Pope him- 
self ; and these involve inconsistencies and demonstrably inaccu- 
rate statements. Pope was anxious in later life to show that he 



FOPE. 41 

had enjoyed the friendship of a man so generally beloved, and was 
equally anxious to show that he had behaved generously and been 
treated with injustice and, indeed, with downright treachery. And 
yet, after reading the various statements made by the original au- 
thorities, one begins to doubt whether there was any real quarrel 
at all; or rather, if one may say so, whether it was not a quarrel 
upon one side. 

It is, indeed, plain that a coolness had sprung up between Pope 
and Addison. Considering Pope's offences against the senate, his 
ridicule of Philips, his imposition of that ridicule upon Steele, and 
his indefensible use of Addison's fame as a stalking-horse in the 
attack upon Dennis, it is not surprising that he should have been 
kept at arm's length. If the rod suspended by Philips at Button's 
be authentic (as seems probable), the talk about Pope, in the 
shadow of such an ornament, is easily imaginable. Some attempts 
seem to have been made at a reconciliation. Jervas, Pope's teacher 
in painting — a bad artist, but a kindly man — tells Pope on August 
20, 1 714, of a conversation with Addison. It would have been 
worth while, he says, for Pope to have been hidden behind a wain- 
scot or a half-length picture to have heard it. Addison expressed 
a wish for friendly relations, was glad that Pope had not been 
"carried too far among the enemy " by Swift, and hoped to be of 
use to him at Court — for Queen Anne died on August 1st; the 
wheel had turned ; and the Whigs were once more the distributors 
of patronage. Pope's answer to Jervas is in the dignified tone ; he 
attributes Addison's coolness to the ill offices of Philips, and is 
ready to be on friendly terms whenever Addison recognises his true 
character and independence of party. Another letter follows, as 
addressed by Pope to Addison himself; but here, alas! if not in 
the preceding letters, we are upon doubtful ground. In fact, it is 
impossible to doubt that the letter has been manipulated after 
Pope's fashion, if not actually fabricated. It is so dignified as to be 
insulting. It is like a box on the ear administered by a pedagogue 
to a repentant but not quite pardoned pupil. Pope has heard 
(from Jervas, it is implied) of Addison's profession ; he is glad to 
hope that the effect of some " late malevolences " is disappearing ; 
he will not believe (that is, he is strongly inclined to believe) that the 
author of Cato could mean one thing and say another ; he will show 
Addison his first two books of Homer as a proof of this confidence, 
and hopes that it will not be abused ; he challenges Addison to 
point out the ill nature in the Essay upon Criticism; and winds up 
by making an utterly irrelevant charge (as a proof, he says, of his 
own sincerity) of plagiarism against one of Addison's Spectators. 
Had such a letter been actually sent as it now stands, Addison's 
good nature could have scarcely held out. As it is, we can only 
assume that during 1714 Pope was on such terms with the clique 
at Button's, that a quarrel would be a natural result. According 
to the ordinary account the occasion presented itself in the next 
year. 

A translation of the first Iliad by Tickell appeared (in June, 



42 



POPE. 



1715) simultaneously with Pope's first volume. Pope had no right 
to complain. No man could be supposed to have a monopoly in the 
translation of Homer. Tickell had the same right to try his hand 
as Pope ; and Pope fully understood this himself. He described 
to Spence a conversation in which Addison told him of Tickell's 
intended work. Pope replied that Tickell was perfectly justified. 
Addison having looked over Tickell's translation of the first book, 
said that he would prefer not to see Pope's, as it might suggest 
double dealing ; but consented to read Pope's second book, and 
praised it warmly. In all this, by Pope's own showing, Addison 
seems to have been scrupulously fair ; and if he and the little sen- 
ate preferred Tickell's work on its first appearance, they had a full 
right to their opinion, and Pope triumphed easily enough to pardon 
them. '' He was meditating a criticism upon Tickell," says John- 
son, " when his adversary sank before him without a blow." 
Pope's performance was universally preferred, and even Tickell 
himself yielded by anticipation. He said, in a short preface, that 
he had abandoned a plan of translating the whole Iliad on finding 
that a much abler hand had undertaken the work, and that he only 
published this specimen to bespeak favour fur a translation of the 
Odyssey. It was, say Pope's apologists, an awkward circumstance 
that Tickell should publish at the same time as Pope, and that is 
about all that they can say. It was, we may reply in Stephenson's 
phrase, very awkward — for Tickell. In all this, in fact, it seems 
impossible for any reasonable man to discover anything of which 
Pope had the slightest ground of complaint ; but his amazingly 
irritable nature was not to be calmed by reason. The bare fact 
that a translation of Homer appeared contemporaneously with his 
own, and that it came from one of Addison's court, made him furi- 
ous. He brooded over it, suspected some dark conspiracy against 
his fame, and gradually mistook his morbid fancies for solid infer- 
ence. He thought that Tickell had been put up by Addison as 
his rival, and gradually worked himself into the further belief that 
Addison himself had actually written the translation which passed 
under Tickell's name. It does not appear, so far as I know, when 
or how this suspicion became current. Some time after Addison's 
death, in 1719, a quarrel took place between Tickell, his literary 
executor, and Steele. Tickell seemed to insinuate that Steele had 
not sufficiently acknowledged his obligations to Addison, and 
Steele, in an angry retort, called Tickell the "reputed trans- 
lator "of the first Iliad, and challenged him to translate another 
book successfully. The innuendo shows that Steele, who certainly 
had some means of knowing, was willing to suppose that Tickell 
had been helped by Addison. The manuscript of Tickell's work, 
which has been preserved, is said to prove this to be an error, and 
in any case there is no real ground for supposing that Addison did 
anything more than he admittedly told Pope, that is, read Tickell's 
manuscript and suggest corrections. 

To argue seriously about other so-called proofs would be waste 
of time. They prove nothing except Pope's extreme anxiety to 



POPE. 



43 



justify his wild hypothesis of a dark conspiracy. Pope was jeal- 
ous, spiteful, and credulous. He was driven to fury by Tickell's 
publication, which had the appearance of a competition. But 
angry as he was, he could find no real cause of complaint, except 
by imagining a fictitious conspiracy ; and this complaint was never 
publicly uttered till long after Addison's death. Addison knew, 
no doubt, of Pope's wrath, but probably cared little for it, except 
to keep himself clear of so dangerous a companion. He seems to 
have remained on terms of civility with his antagonist, and no one 
would have been more surprised than he to hear of the quarrel, 
upon which so much controversy has been expended. 

The whole affair, so far as Addison's character is concerned, 
thus appears to be a gigantic mare's nest. There is no proof, or 
even the slightest presumption, that Addison's friends ever injured 
Pope thought it is clear that they did not love him. It would have 
been marvellous if they had. Pope's suspicions are a proof that 
in this case he was almost subject to the illusion characteristic of 
actual insanity. The belief that a man is persecuted by hidden 
conspirators is one of the common symptoms in such cases ; and 
Pope would seem to have been almost in the initial stage of mental 
disease. His madness, indeed, was not such as would lead us to 
call him morally irresponsible, nor was it the kind of madness 
which is to be found in a good many people who well deserve 
criminal prosecution ; but it was a state of mind so morbid as to 
justify some compassion for the unhappy offender. 

One result besides the illustration of Pope's character remains 
to be noticed. According to Pope's assertion it was a commu- 
nication from Lord Warwick which led him to write his celebrated 
copy of verses upon Addison. Warwick (afterwards Addison's 
step-son) accused Addison of paying Gildon for a gross libel upon 
Pope. Pope wrote to Addison, he says, the next day. He said 
in this letter that he knew of Addison's behaviour — and that, un- 
willing to take a revenge of the same kind, he would rather tell Ad- 
dison fairly of his faults in plain words. If he had to take such a 
step, it would be in some such way as followed, and he subjoined 
the first sketch of the famous lines. Addison, says Pope, used 
him very civilly ever afterwards. Indeed, if the account be true, 
Addison showed his Christian spirit by paying a compliment in one 
of his Freeholders (May 17, 1716) to Pope's Homer. 

Macaulay, taking the story for granted, praises Addison's mag- 
nanimity, which, I must confess, I should be hardly Christian 
enough to admire. It was, however, asserted at the time that Pope 
had not written the verses which have made the quarrel memor- 
able till after Addison's death. They were not published till 
1723, and are not mentioned by any independent authority till 
1722, though Pope afterwards appealed to Burlington as a witness 
to their earlier composition. The fact seems to b,e confirmed by 
the evidence of Lady M. W. Montagu, but it does- not follow that 
Addison ever saw the verses. He knew that Pope disliked him ; 
but he probably did not suspect the'extent of the hostility. Pope 



44 P0PE - 

himself appears not to have devised the worst part of the story— 
that of Addison having used Tickell's name— till some years later. 
Addison was sufficiently magnanimous in praising his spiteful little 
antagonist as it was ; he little knew how deeply that antagonist 
would seek to injure his reputation. 

And here, before passing to the work which afforded the main 
pretext of the quarrel, it may be well to quote once more the cele- 
brated satire. It may be remarked that its excellence is due in 
part to the fact that, for once, Pope does not lose his temper. His 
attack is qualified and really sharpened by an admission of Ad- 
dison's excellence. It is, therefore, a real masterpiece of satire, 
not a simple lampoon. That it is an exaggeration is undeniable, 
and yet its very keenness gives a presumption that it is not alts* 
gether without foundation. 

" Peace to all such ! but were there one whose fires 
True genius kindles and fair fame inspires ; 
Blest with each talent and each art to please, 
And born to write, converse, and live with ease; 
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, 
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne: 
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, 
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; 
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; 
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike ; 
Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike; 
Alike reserved to praise or to commend, 
A timorous foe and a suspicious friend ; 
Dreading ev'ii fools, by flatterers besieged, 
And so obliging that he ne'er obliged ; 
Like Cato, give his little senate laws, 
And sit attentive to his own applause ; 
While wits and templars every sentence raise, 
And wonder with a foolish face of praise; 
Who would not laugh if such a man there be ? 
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he ?" 



I'OFE 



'JO 



CHAPTE R III. 

pope's homer. 

Pope's uneasy relations with the wits at Button's were no ob- 
stacle to his success elsewhere. Swift, now at the height of his 
power, was pleased by his Windsor Forest, recommended it to 
Stella, and soon made the author's acquaintance. The first letter 
in their long correspondence is a laboured but fairly successful 
piece of pleasantry from Pope, upon Swift's having offered twenty 
guineas to the young Papist to change his religion. It is dated 
December 8, 1 71 3. In the preceding month Bishop Kennet saw 
Swift in all his glory, and wrote an often quoted description of the 
scene. Swift was bustling about in the royal antechamber, swelling 
with conscious importance, distributing advice, promising patron- 
age, whispering to ministers, and filling the whole room with his 
presence. He finally " instructed a young nobleman that the best 
poet in England was Mr. Pope, a Papist who had begun a trans- 
lation of Homer into English verse, for which he must have them 
all subscribe ; 'for,' says he, 'the author shall hot begin to print till 
I have a thousand guineas for him ! ' " Swift introduced Pope 
to some of the leaders of the ministry, and he was soon acquainted 
with Oxford, BoJingbroke, Atterbury, and many other men of high 
position. Pope was not disinclined to pride himself upon his fa- 
miliarity with the great, though boasting at the same time of his in- 
dependence. In truth, the morbid vanity which was his cardinal 
weakness seems to have partaken sufficiently of the nature of gen- 
uine self-respect to preserve him from any unworthy concessions. 
If he flattered, it was as one who expected to be repaid in kind ; 
and though his position was calculated to turn the head of a youth 
of five-and-twenty, he took his place as a right without humiliating 
his own dignity. Whether from principle or prudence, he judi- 
ciously kept himself free from identification with either | rty, and 
both sides took a pride in supporting the great literary undertaking 
which he had now announced. 

When Yope first circulated proposals for translating Homer, 
Oxford and Bolingbroke were fellow-ministers, and Swift was their 
most effective organ in the press. At the time at which his first 
volume appeared, Bolingbroke was in exile, Oxford under impeach- 
ment, and Swift had retired savagely and sullenly, to his deanery. 



4 6 POPE. 

Yet, through all the intervening political tempest, the subscription 
list grew and flourished. The pecuniary result was splendid. No 
author had ever made anything approaching the sum which Pope 
received, and very few authors, even in the present age of gold, 
would despise such payment. The details of the magnificent bar- 
gain have been handed down, and give the pecuniary measure of 
Pope's reputation. 

The Iliad was to be published in six volumes. For each volume 
Lintot was to pay 200/. ; and, besides this, he was to supply Pope gra- 
tuitously with the copies for his subscribers. The subscribers paid a 
guinea a volume, and, as 575 subscribers took 654 copies Pope re- 
ceived altogether 5320/. \s. at the regular price, whilst some royal 
and distinguished subscribers paid larger sums. By the publication 
of the Odyssey Pope seems to have made about 3500/. more,* after 
paying his assistants. The result was, therefore, a total profit at least 
approaching 9000/. The last volume of the Odyssey did not appear 
till 1726, and the payments were thus spread over eleven years. 
Pope} however, saved enough to be more than comfortable. In the 
South Sea excitement he ventured to speculate ; but though for a 
time he fancied himself to have made a large sum, he seems to 
have retired rather a loser than a gainer. But he could say with 
perfect truth that, •• thanks to Homer," he "could live and thrive, 
indebted to no prince or peer alive." The money success is, how- 
ever, of less interest to us than the literary. Pope put his best 
work into the translation of the Iliad. His responsibility, he said, 
weighed upon him terribly on starting. He used to drean^ of 
being on a long journey, uncertain which way to go, and doubting 
whether he would ever get to the end. Gradually he fell into the 
habit of translating thirty or forty verses before getting up, and 
then " piddling with it," for the rest of the morning; and the reg- 
ular performance of his task made it tolerable. He used, he said 
at another time, to take advantage of the " first heat," then correct 
bv the original and other translations; and finally to "give it a 
reading; for the versification only." The statement must be partly 
modified by the suggestion that the translations were probably con- 
sult.- 1 before the original. Pope's ignorance of Greek— an awk- 
ward qualification for a translator of Homer— is undeniable. _ Gil- 
bert Wakefield, who was, I believe, a fair scholar, and certainly a 
great admirer of Pope, declares his conviction to be, after a more 
careful examination of the Homer than any one is now likely to 
cave, that Pope "collected the general purport of every passage 
from some of his predecessors— Dr\ den " (who only translated the 
first Iliad), " Dacier, Chapman, or Ogilby." He thinks that Pope 
would have been puzzled to catch at once the meaning even of the 
Latin translation, and points out proofs of his ignorance of both 
languages, and of "ignominious and puerile mistakes." 

It is hard to understand at the present day the audacity which 
could lead a man so ill qualified in point of classical acquirements 

* See Elwin's Pope, Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 129. 



POPE. 



47 



to undertake such a task. And yet Pope undoubtedly achieved, in 
some true sense, an astonishing success. He succeeded com- 
mercially ; for Lintot, after supplying the subscription copies gra- 
tuitously, and so losing the cream of the probable purchasers, made 
a fortune by the remaining sale. He succeeded in the judgment 
both of the critics and of the public of the next generation. John- 
son calls the Homer " the noblest version of poetry the world has 
ever seen." Gray declared that no other translation would ever 
equal it, and Gibbon that it had every merit except that of faithful- 
ness to the original. This merit of fidelity, indeed, was scarcely 
claimed by any one. Bentley's phrase — " a pretty poem, Mr. Pope, 
but you must not call it Homer " — expresses the uniform view 
taken from the first by all who could read both. Its fame how- 
ever, survived into the present century. Byron speaks, — and 
speaks, I think, with genuine feeling — of the rapture with which 
he first read Pope as a boy, and says that no one will ever lay him 
down except for the original. Indeed the testimonies of opponents 
are as significant as those of admirers. Johnson remarks that the 
Homer " may be said to have tuned the English tongue," and that 
no writer since its appearance has wanted melody. Coleridge vir- 
tually admits the fact, though drawing a different conclusion, when he 
says that the translation of Homer has been one of the main sources 
of that " pseudo-poetic diction " which he and Wordsworth were 
struggling to put out of credit. Cowper, the earliest representa- 
tive of the same movement, tried to supplant Pope's Homer by 
his own, and his attempt proved at least the position held in gen- 
eral estimation by his rival. If, in fact, Pope's Homer was-a rec- 
ognised model for near a century, we may dislike the style, but 
we must admit the power implied in a performance which thus be- 
came the accepted standard of style for the best part of a century. 
How, then, should we estimate the merits of this remarkable work? 
I give my own opinion upon the subject with diffidence, for it has 
been discussed by eminently qualified critics. The conditions of 
a satisfactory translation of Homer have been amply canvassed, 
and many experiments have been made by accomplished poets who 
have — what Pope certainly had not — a close acquaintance with the 
original, and a fine appreciation of its superlative beauties. From 
the point of view now generally adopted, the task even of criticism 
requires this double qualification. Not only can no man translate 
Homer, but no man can even criticise a translation of Homer, 
without being at once a poet and a fine classical scholar. So far 
as this is true, I can only apologise for speaking at all, and should 
be content to refer my readers to such able guides as Mr. Matthew 
Arnold and the late Professor Conington. And yet I think that 
something remains to be said which has a bearing upon Pope, how- 
ever little it ma)' concern Homer. 

We— if " we " means modern writers of some classical culture — ■ 
can claim to appreciate Homer far better than the contemporaries 
of Pope. But our appreciation involves a clear recognition of the 
vast difference between ourselves and the ancient Greeks. We 



4 3 POPE. 

see the Homeric poems in their true perspective through the dim 
vista of shadowy centuries. We regard. them as the growth of a 
long past stage in the historical evolution ; implying a different 
social order— a different ideal of life — an archaic conception of the 
world and its forces, only to be reconstructed for the imagination 
by help of long training and serious study. The multiplicity of 
the laws imposed upon the translator is the consequence of this 
perception. They amount to saying that a man must manage to 
project himself into a distant period, and saturate his mind with 
the corresponding modes of life. If the feat is possible at all, it 
requires a great and conscious effort, and the attainment of a state 
of mind which can only be preserved by constant attention. The 
translator has to wear a mask which is always in danger of being 
rudely shattered. Such an intellectual feat is likely to produce 
what, in the most obvious sense, one would call highly artificial 
work. Modern classicism must be fine-spun, and smell rather of 
the hot-house than the open air. Undoubtedly some exquisite liter- 
ary achievements have been accomplished in this spirit; but they 
are, after all, calculated for the small circle of cultivated minds, 
and many of their merits can be appreciated only by professors 
qualified by special training. Most frequently we can hope for 
pretty playthings, or, at best, for skilful restorations which show 
learning and taste far more distinctly than a glowing imagination. 
But even if an original poet can breathe some spirit into classical 
poems, the poor translator, with the dread of philologists and anti- 
quarians in the background, is so fettered that free movement be- 
comes almost impossible. No one, 1 should venture to prophesy, 
will really succeed in such work unless he frankly accepts the im- 
possibility of reproducing the original, and aims only at an equiv- 
alent for some of its aspects. The perception of this change will 
enable us to realise Pope's mode of approaching the problem. 
The condemnatory epithet most frequently applied to him is " arti- 
ficial : " and yet. as I have just said, a modern translator is surely 
more artificial, so far as he is attempting a more radical transfor- 
mation of his own thoughts into the forms of a past epoch. But 
we can easily see in what sense Pope's work fairly deserves the 
name. The poets of an older period frankly adopted the classical 
mythology without any apparent sense of incongruity. They mix 
heathen deities with Christian saints, and the ancient heroes adopt 
the manners of chivalrous romance without the slightest difficulty. 
The freedom was still granted to the writers of the renaissance. 
Milton makes Phoebus and St. Peter discourse in successive stan- 
zas, as if they belonged to the same pantheon. For poetical pur- 
poses the old gods are simply canonised as Christian saints, as in 
a more theological frame of mind they are regarded as devils. In 
the reign of common sense this was no longer possible, The 
incongruity was recognised and condemned. The gods were van- 
ishing under the clearer light, as modern thought began more con- 
sciousiy to assert its independence. Yet the unreality of the old 
mythology is not felt to be any objection to their use as conven« 



tional symbols. Homer's gods, says Pope in his preface, are still 
the gods of poetry. Their vitality was nearly extinct, but they 
were regarded as convenient personifications of abstract qualities, 
machines for epic poetry, or figures to be used in allegory. In the 
absence of a true historical perception, the same view was attrib- 
uted to Homer. Homer, as Pope admits, did not invent the gods, 
but he was the " first who brought them into a system of machinery 
for poetry," and showed his' fertile imagination by clothing the 
properties of the elements, and the virtues and vices in forms and 
persons. And thus Pope does not feel that he is diverging from 
the spirit of the old mythology when he regards the gods, not as 
the spontaneous growth of the primitive imagination, but as delib- 
erate contrivances intended to convey moral truth in allegorical 
fables, and probably devised by sages for the good of the vulgar. 

The old gods, then, were made into stiff mechanical figures, as 
dreary as Justice with her scales, or Fame blowing a trumpet on a 
monument. They belonged to that family of dismal personifica- 
tions which it was customary to mark with the help of capital let- 
ters. Certainly they are a dismal and frigid set of beings, though 
they still lead a shivering existence on the tops of public monu- 
ments, and hold an occasional wreath over the head of a British 
grenadier. To identify the Homeric»gods with these wearisome 
constructions was to have a more serious disqualification for fully 
entering into Homer's spirit than even an imperfect acquaintance 
with Greek, and Pope is greatly exercised in his mind by their 
eating, and drinking, and fighting, and uncompromising anthropo- 
morphism. He apologises for his author, and tries to excuse him 
for unwilling compliance with popular prejudices. The Homeric 
theology, he urges, was still substantially sound, and Homer had 
always a distinct moral and political purpose. The Iliad, for ex- 
ample, was meant to show the wickedness of quarrelling, and the 
evil results of an insatiable thirst for glory, though shallow persons 
have thought that Homer only thought to' please. 

The artificial diction about which so much has been said is the 
natural vehicle of this treatment. The set of phrases, and the 
peculiar mould into which his sentences were cast, was already the 
accepted type for poetry which aimed at dignity. He was following 
Dryden, as his own performance became the law for the next gen- 
eration. The style in which a woman is called a nymph — and 
women generally are "the fair" — in which shepherds are conscious 
swains, and a poet invokes the muses and strikes a lyre, and 
breathes on a reed, and a nightingale singing becomes Philomel 
"pouring her throat," represents a fashion as worn out as hoops 
and wigs. By the time of Wordsworth it was a mere survival — a 
dead form remaining after its true function had entirely vanished. 
The proposal to return to the language of common life was the 
natural revolt of one who desired poetry to be above all things the 
genuine expression of real emotion. Yet it is, I think, impossible 
to maintain that the diction of poetry should be simply that of com- 
mon life. 



The true principle would rather seem to be that any style be- 
comes bad when it dies ; when it is used merely as a tradition, and 
not as the best mode of producing the desired impression ;' and 
when, therefore, it represents a rule imposed from without, and is 
not an expression of the spontaneous working of minds in which 
the corresponding impulse is thoroughly incarnated. In such a 
case, no doubt, the diction becomes a burden, and a man is apt to 
fancy himself a poet because he is the slave of the external form 
instead of using it as the most familiar instrument. By Words- 
worth's time the Pope style was thus effete ; what ought to be the 
dress of thought had become the rigid armour into which thought 
was forcibly compressed, and a revolt was inevitable. We may 
agree, too, that his peculiar style was in a sense artificial, even in 
the days of Pope. It had come into existence during the rci<m of 
the Restoration wits, under the influence of foreign models, not as 
the spontaneous outgrowth of a gradual development, and had 
therefore something mechanical and conscious, even when it flour- 
ished most vigorously. It came in with the periwigs, to which it 
is so often compared, and, like the artificial head-gear, was an at- 
tempt to give a dignified or full-dress appearance" to the average 
prosaic human being. Having this innate weakness of pomposity 
and exaggeration, it naturally expired, and became altogether ridic- 
ulous, with the generation to which it belonged. As the wit or 
man of the world had at bottom a very inadequate conception of 
epic poetry, he became inevitably strained and contorted when he 
tried to give himself the airs of a poet. 

After making all such deductions, it would still seem that the 
bare fact that he was working in a generally accepted style gave 
Pope a very definite advantage. He spoke more or less in a fal- 
setto, but he could at once strike a key intelligible to his audience. 
An earlier poet would simply annex Homer's gods and fix them 
with a mediaeval framework. A more modern poet tries to find 
some style which will correspond to the Homeric as closely as 
possible, and feels that he is making an experiment beset with all 
manner of difficulties. Pope needed no more to bother himself 
about such matters than about grammatical or philological refine- 
ments. He found a ready-made style which was assumed to be 
correct; he had to write in regular rhymed couplets, as neatly 
rhymed and tersely expressed as might be ; and the diction was 
equally settled. He was to keep to Homer for the substance, but 
he could throw in any little ornaments to suit the taste of his 
readers; and if they found out a want of scrupulous fidelity, he 
might freely say that he did not aim at such details. Working, 
therefore, upon the given data, he could enjoy a considerable 
amount of freedom, and throw his whole energy into the task of 
forcible expression without feeling himself trammelled at every 
step. The result would certainly not be Homer, but it might be a 
fine epic poem as epic poetry was understood in the days of Anne 
and George I. — a hybrid genus, at the best; something without 
enough constitutional vigour to be valuable when really original, 



POPE. 51 

but not without a merit of its own when modelled upon the lines 
laid clown in the great archetype. 

When we look at Pope's Iliad upon this understanding, we can- 
not fail, I think, to admit that it has merits which make its great 
success intelligible. If we read it as a purely English poem, the 
sustained vivacity and emphasis of the style give it a decisive 
superiority over its rivals. It has become the fashion to quote 
Chapman since the noble sonnet in which Keats, in testifying to the 
power of the Elizabethan translator, testifies rather to his own 
exquisite perception. Chapman was a poet worthy of our great 
poetic period, and Pope himself testifies to the "daring fiery 
spirit " which animates his translation, and says that it is not un- 
like what Homer himself might have written in his youth — surely 
not a grudging praise. But though this is true, I will venture to 
assert that Chapman also sins, not merely by his love of quaintness, 
but by constantly indulging in sheer doggerel. If his lines do not 
stagnate, they foam and fret like a mountain brook, instead of flow- 
ing continuously and majestically like a great river. He surpasses 
Pope chiefly, as it seems to me, where Pope's conventional verbi- 
age smothers and conceals some vivid image from nature. Pope, 
of course, was a thorough man of forms, and when he has to speak 
of sea, or sky, or mountain, generally draws upon the current coin 
of poetic phraseology, which has lost all sharpness of impression 
in its long circulation. Here, for example, is Pope's version of a 
simile in the fourth book : — 

" As when the winds, ascending by degrees, 
First move the whitening surface of the seas, 
The billows float in order to the shore, 
The waves behind roll on the waves before, 
Till with the growing storm the deeps arise, 
Foam o'er the rocks, and thunder to the skies." 

Each phrase is either wrong or escapes from error by vagueness, 
and one would swear that Pope had never seen the sea. Chapman 
says, — 

" And as when with the west wind flaws, the sea thrusts up her waves 
One after other, thick and high, upon the groaning shores, 
First in herself loud, but opposed with banks and rocks she roars, 
And all her back in bristles set, spits every way her foam." 

This is both clumsy and introduces the quaint and unauthorised 
image of a pig, but it is unmistakably vivid. Pope is equally 
troubled when he has to deal with Homer's downright vernacular. 
He sometimes ventures apologetically to give the original word. 
He allows Achilles to speak pretty vigorously to Agamemnon in 
the first book :— 

" O monster ! mix'd of insolence and fear, 
Thou dog in forehead, but in heart a deer ! " 



52 POPE. 

Chapman translates the phrase more fully, but adds a characteristic 
quibble : — 

" Thou ever steep'd in wine, 
Dog's face, with heart but of a hart." 

Tickell manages the imputation of drink, but has to slur ovei tha 
dog and the deer : — 

" Valiant with wine and furious from the bowl, 
Thou fierce-look'd talker, with a coward soul." 

Elsewhere Pope hesitates in the use of such plain speaking. 
He allows Teucer to call Hector a dog, but apologises in a note. 
"This is literal from the Greek," he says, "and 1 have ventured 
it;" though he quotes Milton's "dogs of hell " to back himself 
with a precedent. But he cannot quite stand Homer's downright 
comparison of Ajax to an ass, and speaks of him in gingerly 
fashion as — 

" The slow beast with heavy strength endued." 

Pope himself thinks the passage "inimitably just and beautiful ; " 
but on the whole, he says, " a translator owes so much to the taste 
of the age in which he lives as not to make too great a compliment 
to the former [age], and this induced me to omit the mention of the 
word ass in the translation." Boileau and Longinus, he tells us, 
would approve the omission of mean and vulgar words. " Ass " 
is the vilest word imaginable in English or Latin, but of dignity 
enough in Greek and Hebrew to be employed " on the most mag- 
nificent occasions." 

The Homeric phrase is thus often muffled and deadened by 
Pope's verbiage. Dignity of a kind is gained at the cost of energy. 
If such changes admit of some apology' as an attempt to preserve 
what is undoubtedly a Homeric characteristic, we must admit that 
the "dignity" is often false ; it rests upon mere mouthing instead 
of simplicity and directness, and suggests that Pope might have 
approved the famous emendation "he died in indigent circum- 
stances," for " he died poor." The same weakness is perhaps 
more annoying when it leads to sins of commission. Pope never 
scruples to amend Homer by little epigrammatic amplifications, 
which are characteristic of the contemporary rhetoric. A single 
illustration of a fault sufficiently notorious will be sufficient. When 
Nestor, in the eleventh book, rouses Diomed at night, Pope natur- 
ally smooths down the testy remark of the sleepy warrior ; but he 
tries to improve Nestor's directions. Nestor tells Diomed, in 
most direct terms, that the need is great, and that he must go at 
once and rouse Ajax. In Pope's translation we have — 

"Each single Greek in this conclusive strife 
Stands on the sharpest edge of death or life ; 



POPE. 53 

Yet if my years thy kind regard engage, 
Employ thy youth as I employ my age ; 
Succeed to these my cares, and rouse the rest ; 
He serves me most who serves his country best." 

The false air of epigram which Pope gives to the fourth line is 
characteristic ; and the concluding tag, which is quite unauthorised, 
reminds us irresistibly of one of the rhymes which an actor always 
spouted to the audience by way of winding up an act in the contem- 
porary drama. Such embroidery is profusely applied by Pope 
wherever he thinks that Homer, like Diomed, is slumbering too 
deeply. And of course, that is not the way in which Nestor roused 
Diomed or Homer keeps his readers awake. 

Such faults have been so fully exposed that we need not dwell 
upon them further. They come to this, that Pope was really a 
wit of the days of Ouccn Anne, and saw only that aspect of Homer 
which was visible to his kind. The poetic mood was not for him 
a fine frenzy — for good sense must condemn all frenzy — but a de- 
liberate elevation of the bard by high-heeled shoes and a full- 
bottomed wig. Seas and mountains, being invisible from Button's, 
could only be described by worn phrases from the Latin grammar. 
Even his narrative must be full of epigrams to avoid the one 
deadly sin of dulness, and his language must be decorous even at 
the price of being sometimes emasculated. But accept these con- 
ditions, and much still remains. After all, a wit was still a human 
being, and much more nearly related to us than an ancient Greek. 
Pope's style, when he is at his best, has the merit of being thor- 
oughly alive ; there are no dead masses of useless verbiage ; every 
excrescence has been carefully pruned away ; slovenly paraphrases 
and indistinct slurrings over of the meaning have disappeared. 
He corrected carefully and scrupulously, as his own statement im- 
plies, not with a view of transferring as large a portion as possible 
of his author's meaning to his own verses, but in order to make 
the versification as smooth and the sense as transparent as possible. 
We have the pleasure which we receive from really polished ora- 
tory ; every point is made to tell ; if the emphasis is too often 
pointed by some showy antithesis, we are at least never uncertain 
as to the meaning ; and if the versification is often monotonous, it 
is articulate and easily caught at first sight. These are the essen- 
tial merits of good declamation, and it is in the true declamatory 
passages that Pope is at his best. The speeches of his heroes are 
often admirable, full of spirit, well balanced and skilfully arranged 
pieces of rhetoric — not a mere inorganic series of observations. 
Undoubtedly the warriors are a little too epigrammatic and too 
consciously didactic ; and we feel almost scandalised when they 
take to downright blows, as though Walpole and St. John were in- 
terrupting a debate in the House of Commons by fisticuffs. They 
would be better in the senate than the field. But the brilliant 
rhetoric implies also a sense of dignity which is not mere artificial 
mouthing. Pope, as it seems to me, rises to a level of sustained 



54 



POPE. 



eloquence when he has to act as interpreter for the direct expres- 
sion of broad, magnanimous sentiment. Classical critics may ex- 
plain by what shades of feeling the aristocratic grandeur of soul of 
an English noble differed from the analogous quality in heroic 
Greece, and find the difference reflected in the "grand style " of 
Pope as compared with that of Homer. But Pope could at least 
assume with admirable readiness the lofty air of superiority to 
personal fears, and patriotic devotion to a great cause, which is 
common to the type in every age. His tendency to didactic plati- 
tudes is at least out of place in such cases, and his dread of vulgar- 
ity and quaintness, with his genuine feeling for breadth of effect, 
frequently enables him to be really dignified and impressive. It 
will, perhaps, be sufficient illustration of these qualities if I con- 
clude these remarks by giving his translation of Hector's speech to 
Polydamas in the twelfth book, with its famous el<j oiuivoq apiarus 
djxuvsaOat ne/n 7rdr//rj^. 

"To him then Hector with disdain return'd ; 
(Fierce as he spoke, his eyes with furv Imrn'd) — 
Are these the faithful counsels of thy tongue ? 
Thy will is partial, not thy reason wrong; 
Or if the purpose of thy heart thou sent, 
Sure Heaven resumes the little sense it lent — 
What coward counsels would thy madness move 
Against the word, the will reveal'd of Jove ? 
The leading sign, the irrevocable nod 
And happv thunders of the favouring God ? 
These shall I slight ? And guide my wavering mind 
By wand'ring birds that flit with every wind ? 
Ye vagrants of the sky ! your wings extend 
Or where the suns arise or where descend; 
To right or left, unheeded take your way, 
While I the dictates- of high heaven obey 
Without a sigh his sworcl the brave man draws, 
And asks no omen but his country's cause. 
But whv should'st thou suspect the war's success ? 
None fears it more, as none promotes it less. 
Tho' all our ships amid yon ships expire, 
Trust thy own cowardice to escape the fire. 
Troy and her sons may find a general grave, 
But thou canst live, for thou canst be a slave. 
Yet should the fears that wary mind suggests 
Spread their cold poison through our soldiers' breasts, 
My javelin can revenge so base a part, 
And free the soul that quivers in thy heart." 

The six volumes of the Iliad were published during the years 
171 5-1720, and were closed by a dedication to Congrevc, who, as 
an eminent man of letters, not too closely connected with either 
Whigs or Tories, was the most appropriate recipient of such a 
compliment. Pope was enriched by his success, and no doubt 
wearied by his labours. But his restless intellect would never 



POPE. 



55 



leave him to indulge in prolonged repose, and, though not avari- 
cious, he was not more averse than other men to increasing his 
fortune. He soon undertook two sufficient!)' laborious works. 
The first was an edition of Sl.ak peare, for which he only received 
217/. \os., and which seems to h ive been regarded as a failure. It 
led, like his other publications, to a quarrel to be hereafter men- 
tioned, but need not detain us at present. It appeared in 1725, 
when he was already deep in another project. The success of the 
Iliad naturally suggested an attempt upon the Odyssey. Pope, 
however, was tired of translating, and he arranged for assistance. 
He took into alliance a couple of Cambridge men, who were small 
poets capable of fairly adopting his versification. One of them 
was William Broome, a clergyman who held several livings and 
married a rich widow. Unfortunately his independence did not 
restrain him from writing poetry, for which want of means would 
have been the only sufficient excuse. He was a man of some 
classical attainments, and had helped Pope in compiling notes to 
the Iliad from Eustathius, an author whom Pope would have been 
scarcely able to read without such assistance. Elijah Fenton, his 
other assistant, was a Cambridge man who had sacrificed his 
claims of preferment by becoming a non-juror, and picked up a 
living partly by writing and chiefly by acting as tutor to Lord 
Orrery, and afterwards in the family of Trumball's widow. Pope, 
who introduced him to Lady Trumball, had also introduced him to 
Craggs, who, when Secretary of State, felt his want of a decent 
education, and wished to be polished by some competent person. 
He seems to have been a kindly, idle, honourable man, who died, 
says Pope, of indolence, and more immediately, it appears, of the 
gout. The alliance thus formed was rather a delicate one, and 
was embittered by some of Pope's usual trickery. In issuing his 
proposals he spoke in ambiguous terms of two friends who were 
to render him some undefined assistance, and did not claim to be 
the translator, but to have undertaken the translation. The assist- 
ants, in fact, did half the work, Broome translating eight, and Fen- 
ton four, out of the twenty-four books. Pope was unwilling to ac- 
knowledge the full amount of their contributions ; he persuaded 
Broome — a weak, good-natured man— to set his hand to a post- 
script to the Odyssey, in which only three books are given to 
Broome himself, and only two to Fenton. When Pope was at- 
tacked for passing off other people's verses as his own, he boldly 
appealed to this statement to prove that he had only received 
Broome's help in three books, and at the same time stated the 
whole amount which he had paid for the eight, as though it had 
been paid for the three. When Broome, in spite of his subser- 
vience, became a little restive under this treatment, Pope indirectly 
admitted the truth by claiming only twelve books in an advertise- 
ment to his works, and in a note to the Dunciad, but did not ex- 
plicitly retract the other statement. Broome could not effectively 
rebuke his fellow-sinner. He had, in fact, conspired with Pope to 
attract the public by the use of the most popular name, and could 



5 6 POPE. 

not even claim his own afterwards. He had, indeed, talked too 
much, according to Pope ; and the poet's morality is oddly illus- 
trated in a letter, in which he complains of Broome's indiscretion 
for letting out the secret; and explains that, as the facts are so far 
known, it would now be " unjust and dishonourable " to continue the 
concealment. It would be impossible to accept more frankly the 
theory that lying is wrong when it is found out. Meanwhile 
Pope's conduct to his victims or accomplices was not over-gener- 
ous. He made over 3500/. after paying Broome 500/. (including 
100/. for notes) and Fenton 200/. — that is, 50/. a book. The rate 
of pay was as high as the work was worth, and as much as it would 
fetch in the open market. The large sum was entirely due to Pope's 
reputation, though obtained, so far as the true authorship was con- 
cealed, upon something like false pretences. Still, we could have 
wished that he had been a little more liberal with his share of the 
plunder. A coolness ensued between the principal and his part- 
ners in consequence of these questionable dealings. Fenton seems 
never to have been reconciled to Pope, though they did not openly 
quarrel, and Pope wrote a laudatory epitaph for him on his death 
in 1730. Broome — a weaker man — though insulted by Pope in the 
Dunciad and the Miscellanies, accepted a reconciliation, for which 
Pope seems to have been eager, perhaps feeling some touch of 
remorse for the injuries which he had inflicted. 

The shares of the three colleagues in the Odyssey are not to 
be easily distinguished by internal evidence. On trying the ex- 
periment by a cursory reading, I confess (though a critic does not 
willingly admit his fallibility) that I took some of Broome's work 
for Pope's, and, though closer study or an acuter perception might 
discriminate more accurately, I do not think that the distinction 
would be easy. This may be taken to confirm the common theory 
that Pope's versification was a mere mechanical trick. Without 
admitting this, it must be admitted that the external characteristics 
of his manner were easily caught ; and that it was not hard for a 
clever versifier to produce something closely resembling his in- 
ferior work, especially when following the same original. But it 
may be added that Pope's Odyssey was really inferior to the Iliad, 
both because his declamatory style is more out of place in its ro- 
mantic narrative, and because he was weary and languid, and glad 
to turn his fame to account without more labour than necessary. 
The Odyssey, I may say, in conclusion, led to one incidental ad- 
vantage. It was criticised by Spence, a mild and cultivated 
scholar, who was professor of poetry at Oxford. His observa- 
tions, according to Johnson, were candid, though not indicative of 
a powerful mind. Pope, he adds, had in Spence the first experi- 
ence of a critic " who censured with respect and praised with 
alacrity." Pope made Spence's acquaintance, recommended hirn 
to patrons, and was repaid with warm admiration." 



pope. 57 



CHAPTER IV. 

POPE AT TWICKENHAM. 

When Pope finished his translation of the Iliad, he was con- 
gratulated by his friend Gay in a pleasant copy of verses marked 
by the usual 'bonli omie of the fat, kindly man. Gay supposes himself 
to be welcoming his friend on the return from his long expedition. 

" Did I not see thee when thou first sett'st sail, 
To seek adventures fair in Homer's land ? 

Did I not see thy sinking spirits fail, 

And wish thy bark had never left the strand ? 

Even in mid ocean often didst thou quail, 
And oft lift up thy holy eye and hand, 

Praying to virgin dear and saintly choir 

Back to the port to bring thy bark entire." 

And now the bark is sailing up the Thames, with bells ringing, 
bonfires blazing, and "bones and cleavers " clashing. So splendid 
a show suggests Lord Mayor's Day, but, in fact, it is only the 
crowd of Pope's friends come to welcome him on his successful 
achievement ; and a long catalogue follows, in which each is in- 
dicated by some appropriate epithet. The list includes some 
doubtful sympathisers, such as Gilclon, who comes " hearing thou 
hast riches," and even Dennis, who, in fact, continued to growl 
out criticisms against the triumphant poet. Steele, too, and 
Tickell, — 

" Whose skiff (in partnership they say) 
Set forth for Greece but founder' d on the way," 

would not applaud very cordially. Addison, their common hero, 
was beyond the reach of satire or praise. Parnell, who had 
contributed a life of Homer, died in 1 7 1 8 ; and Rowe and Garth, 
sound Whigs, but friends and often boon companions of the 
little papist, had followed. Swift was breathing " Boeotian air " 
in his deanery, and St. John was "confined to foreign climates * 
for very sufficient reasons Any such roll-call of friends must 
show melancholy gaps, and sometimes the gaps are more signifi- 
cant than the names. Yet Pope could boast of a numerous 



cS POPE. 

bod)- of men, man)' of them of high distinction, who were ready 
to give him a warm welcome. There were, indeed, few eminent 
persons of the time, either in the political or literary worlds, 
with whom this sensitive and restless little invalid did not come 
into contact, hostile or friendly, at some part of his career. His 
friendships were keen and his hostilities more than proportionally 
bitter. We see his fragile figure, glancing rapidly from one hos- 
pitable circle to another, but always standing a little apart ; now 
paying court to some conspicuous wit, or philosopher, or statesman, 
or beauty; now taking deadly offence for some utterly inexplicable 
reason ; writhing with agony under clumsy blows which a robuster 
nature would have met with contemptuous laughter ; racking his 
wits to contrive exquisite compliments, and suddenly exploding in 
sheer Billingsgate ; making a mountain of every mole-hill in his 
pilgrimage ; always preoccupied with his last literary project ; and 
yet finding time for innumerable intrigues, for carrying out schemes 
of vengeance for wounded vanity, and for introducing himself into 
every quarrel that was going on around him. In all his multifarious 
schemes and occupations he found it convenient to cover himself 
by elaborate mystifications, and was as anxious (it would seem) to 
deceive posterity as to impose upon contemporaries ; and hence it 
is as difficult clearly to disentangle the twisted threads of his com- 
plex history as to give an intelligible picture of the result of the 
investigation. The publication of the Iliad, however, marks a kind 
or central point in his history. Pope has reached independence, 
and become the acknowledged head of the literary world ; and it 
will be convenient here to take a brief survey of his position, 
before following out two or three different series of events, which 
can scarcely be given in chronological order. Pope, when he first 
came to town and followed Wycherley about like a dog, had tried 
to assume the airs of a rake. The same tone is adopted in many 
of his earlier letters. At Binfield he became demure, correct, and 
respectful to the religious scruples of his parents. In his visits to 
London and Bath he is little better than one of the wicked. In a 
copy of verses (not too decent) written in 171 5, as a " Farewell to 
London," he gives us to understand that he has been hearing the 
chimes at midnight, and knows where the bona-robas dwell. He 
is forced to leave his jovial friends and his worrying publishers 
" for Homer (damn him !) calls." He is, so he assures us, 

" Still idle, with a busy air 

Deep whimsies to contrive ; 
The gayest valetudinaire, 
Most thinking rake alive." 

And he takes a sad leave of London pleasures. 

" Luxurious lobster nights, farewell, 
For sober, studious days ! 
And Burlington's delicious meal 
For salads, tarts, and pease." 



POPE. S9 

Writing from Bath a little earlier, to Teresa and Martha Blount, 
he employs the same jaunty strain. " Every one," he says, " values 
Mr. Pope, but every one for a different reason. One for his ad- 
herence to the Catholic faith, another for his neglect of Popish 
superstition ; one for his good behaviour, another for his whimsical- 
ities ; Mr. Titcomb for his pretty atheistical jests ; Mr. Caryll for 
his moral and Christian sentences ; Mrs. Teresa for his reflections 
on Mrs. Patty; Mrs. Patty for his reflections on Mrs. Teresa." 
He is an "agreeable rattle ; " the accomplished rake, drinking with 
the wits, though above boozing with the squire, and capable of 
alleging his drunkenness as an excuse for writing very questionable 
letters to ladies. 

Pope was too sickly and too serious to indulge long in such 
yoUthful fopperies. He had no fund of high spirits to draw upon, 
and his playfulness was too near deadly earnest for the comedy of 
common life. He had too much intellect to be a mere fribble, and 
had not the strong animal passions of the thorough debauchee. 
Age came upon him rapidly, and he had sown his wild oats, such 
as they were, while still a young man. Meanwhile his reputation and 
his circle of acquaintances were rapidly spreading, and in spite of 
all his disqualifications for the coarser forms of conviviality, he took 
the keenest possible interest in the life that went on around him. 
A satirist may not be a pleasant companion, but he must frequent 
society ; he must be on the watch for his natural prey ; he must 
describe the gossip of the day, for it is the raw material from which 
he spins his finished fabric. Pope, as his writings show, was an 
eager recipient of all current rumours, whether they affected his 
aristocratic friends or the humble denizens of Grub-street. Fully to 
elucidate his poems, a commentator requires to have at his fingers' 
ends the whole chronique scandalciise of the day. With such 
tastes, it was natural that, as the subscriptions for his Homer began 
to pour in, he should be anxious to move nearer the great social 
centre. London itself might be too exciting for his health and too 
destructive of literary leisure. Accordingly, in 1716, the little prop- 
erty at Binfield was sold, and the Pope family moved to Mawson's 
New Buildings, on the bank of the river at Chiswick, and "under 
the wing of my Lord Burlington." He seems to have been a little 
ashamed of the residence ; the name of it is certainly neither aris- 
tocratic nor poetical. Two years later, on the death of his father, 
he moved up the river to the villa at Twickenham, which has always 
been associated with his name, and was his home for the last 
twenty-five years of his life. There he had the advantage of being 
just on the boundary of the great world. He was within easy reach 
of Hampton Court, Richmond, and Kew; places which, during 
Pope's residence, were frequently glorified by the presence of 
George II. and his heir and natural enemy, Frederick, Prince of 
Wales. Pope, indeed, did not enjoy the honour of any personal 
interview with royalty. George is said to have called him a very 
honest man after reading his Dunciad; but Pope's references to 
his Sovereign were not complimentary. There was a report, re- 



60 POPE. 

ferred to by Swift, that Pope had purposely avoided a visit from 
Queen Caroline. He was on very friendly terms with Mrs. Howard— 
afterwards Lady Suffolk — the powerless mistress, who was intimate 
with two of his chief friends, Bathurst and Peterborough, and who 
settled at Marble Villa, in Twickenham. Pope and Bathurst helped 
to lay out her grounds, and she stayed there to become a friendly 
neighbour of Horace Walpole, who, unluckily for lovers of gossip, 
did not become a Twickenhamite until three years after Pope's 
death. Pope was naturally more allied with the Prince of Wales, 
who occasionally visited him, and became intimate with the band 
of patriots and enthusiasts who saw in the heir to the throne the 
coming " patriot king." Bolingbroke, too, the great inspirer of the 
opposition, and Pope's most revered friend, was for ten years at 
Dawley, within an easy drive. London was easily accessible by 
road and by the river which bounded his lawn. His waterman 
appears to have been one of the regular members of his household. 
There he had every opportunity for the indulgence of his favourite 
tastes. The villa was on one of the loveliest reaches of the Thames, 
not yet polluted by the encroachments of London. The house 
itself was destroyed in the beginning of this century ; and the 
garden (if we may trust Horace Walpole) had been previously 
spoilt. This garden, says Walpole, was a little bit of ground of 
five acres, enclosed by three lanes. " Pope had twisted and twirled 
and rhymed and harmonised this, till it appeared two or three 
sweet little lawns, opening and opening beyond one another, 
and the whole surrounded with impenetrable woods." These, it 
appears, were hacked and hewed into mere desolation by the next 
proprietor. Pope was, indeed, an ardent lover of the rising art of 
landscape gardening ; he was familiar with Bridgeman and Kent, 
the great authorities of the time, and his example and precepts 
helped to promote the development of a less formal style. His 
theories are partly indicated in the description of Timon's villa. 

" His gardens next your admiration call, 
On every side you look, behold the wall I 
No pleasing intricacies intervene, 
No artful wildness to perplex the scene ; 
Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother, 
And half the platform just reflects the other." 

Pope's taste, indeed, tolerated various old-fashioned excrescences 
which we profess to despise. He admired mock classical temples 
and obelisks erected judiciously at the ends of vistas. His most 
famous piece of handiwork, the grotto at Twickenham, still re- 
mains, and is, in fact, a short tunnel under the high road to con- 
nect his grounds with the lawn which slopes to the river. He de- 
scribes, in a letter to one of his friends, his "temple wholly com- 
prised of shells in the rustic manner," and his famous grotto so 
provided with mirrors that when the doors are shut it becomes a 
camera obscura, reflecting hills, river, and boats, and when lighted 
up glitters with rays reflected from bits of looking-glass in angular 



POPE. 6 1 

form. His friends pleased him by sending pieces of spar from the 
mines of Cornwall and Derbyshire, petrifactions, marble, coral, crys- 
tals, and humming-birds' nests. It was, in fact, a gorgeous example 
of the kind of architecture with which the cit delighted to adorn his 
country box. The hobby, whether in good taste or not, gave Pope 
never-ceasing amusement ; and he wrote some characteristic verses 
in its praise. 

In his grotto, as he declares in another place, he could sit in 
peace with his friends, undisturbed by the distant din of the world. 

" There my retreat the best companions grace, 
Chiefs out of war, and statesmen out of place ; 
There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl 
The feast of reason and the flow of soul ; 
And he whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines 
Now forms my quincunx and now ranks my vines, 
Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain 
Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain." 

The grotto, one would fear, was better fitted for frogs than for phi- 
losophers capable of rheumatic twinges. But deducting what we 
please from such utterances on the score of affectation, the picture 
of Pope amusing himself with his grotto and his plantations, direct- 
ing old John Searle, his gardener, and conversing with the friends 
whom he compliments so gracefully, is, perhaps, the pleasantest in 
his history. He was far too restless and too keenly interested in 
society and literature to resign himself permanently to any such 
retreat. 

Pope's constitutional irritability kept him constantly on the 
wing. Though little interested in politics, he liked to be on the 
edge of any political commotion. He appeared in London on the 
death of Queen Caroline, in 1737; and Bathurst remarked that 
" he was as sure to be there in a bustle as a porpoise in a storm." 
" Our friend Pope," said Jarvas not long before, " is off and on, 
here and there, everywhere and nowhere, a son ordinaire, and, 
therefore as well as we can hope for a carcase so crazy." The 
Twickenham villa, though nominally dedicated to repose, became, 
of course, a centre of attraction for the interviewers of the day. 
The opening lines of the Prologue to the Satires give a vivacious 
description of the crowds of authors who rushed to " Twitnam," 
to obtain his patronage or countenance, in a day when editors were 
not the natural scapegoats of such aspirants. 

" What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide? 
They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide ; 
By land, by water, they renew the charge ; 
They stop the chariot and they board the barge : 
No place is sacred, not the church is free, 
E'en Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me." 

And even at an earlier period he occasionally retreated from the 
bustle to find time for his Homer, Lord Harcourt, the Chancellor 



C2 POPE. 

in the last years of Queen Anne, allowed him to take up his res- 
idence in his old house of Stanton Harcourt, in Oxfordshire. He 
inscribed on a pane of glass in an upper room, " In the year 1 718 
Alexander Pope finished here the fifth volume of Homer." In his 
earlier days he was often rambling about on horseback. A letter 
from Jervas gives the plan of one such jaunt (in 171 5), with 
Arbuthnot and Disney for companions. Arbuthnot is to be com- 
mander-in-chief, and allows only a shirt and a cravat to be carried 
in each traveller's pocket. They are to make a moderate journey 
each day, and stay at the houses of various friends, ending ulti- 
mately at Bath. Another letter of about the same dale describes 
a ride to Oxford, in which Pope is overtaken by his publisher, 
Lintot, who lets him into various secrets of the trade, and proposes 
that Pope should turn an ode of Horace whilst sitting under the 
trees to rest. " Lord, if you pleased, what a clever miscellany 
might you make at leisure hours ! " exclaimed the man of business ; 
and though Pope laughed at the advice, we might fancy that he 
took it to heart. He always had bits of verse on the anvil, ready 
to be hammered and polished at any moment. But even Pope 
could not be always writing, and the mere mention of these ram- 
bles suggests pleasant lounging through old-world country lanes 
of the quiet century. We think of the roadside life seen by 
Parson Adams or Humphry Clinker, and of which Mr. Borrow 
caught the last glimpse when dwelling in the tents of the Romany. 
In later days Pope had to put his "crazy carcase "into a carriage, 
and occasionally came in for less pleasant experiences. Whilst 
driving home one night from Davvley, in Bolingbroke's carriage 
and six, he was upset in a stream. He escaped drowning, though 
the water was "up to the knots of his periwig," but he was so cut 
by the broken glass that he nearly lost the use of his right hand. 
On another occasion Spence was delighted by the sudden appear- 
ance of the poet at Oxford, u dreadfully fatigued ; " he had good- 
naturedly lent his own chariot to a lady wjio had been hurt in an 
upset, and had walked three miles to Oxford on a sultry day. 

A man of such brilliant wit, familiar with so many social circles, 
should have been a charming companion. It must, however, be 
admitted that the accounts which have come down to us do not 
confirm such preconceived impressions. Like his great rival, Ad- 
dison, though for other reasons, he was generally disappointing in 
society. Pope, as may be guessed from Spence's reports, had a 
large fund of interesting literary talk, such as youthful aspirants to 
fame would be delighted to receive with reverence ; he had the n p- 
utation for telling anecdotes skilfully, and we may suppose that 
when he felt at ease, with a respectful and safe companion, he 
could do himself justice. But he must have been very trying to his 
hosts. He could seldom lay aside his self-consciousness sufficiently 
to write an easy letter; and the same fault probably spoilt Ids con- 
versation. Swift complains of him as a silent and inattentive com- 
panion. He went to sleep at his own table, says Johnson, when 
the Prince of Wales was talking poetry to him — certainly a severe 



POPE. 6$ 

trial. He would, we may guess, be silent till he had something to 
say worthy of the great Pope, and would then doubt whether it was 
not wise to treasure it up for preservation in a couplet. His sister 
declared that she had never seen him laugh heartily ; and Spence, 
who records the saying, is surprised, because Pope was said to 
have been very lively in his youth ; but admits that in later years 
he never went beyond a "particular easy smile." A hearty laugh 
would have sounded strangely from the touchy,moody, intriguing lit- 
tle man, who could " hardly drink tea without a stratagem." His 
sensitiveness, indeed, appearing by his often weeping when he 
read moving passages ; but we can hardly imagine him as ever 
capable of genial self-abandonment. 

His unsocial habits, indeed, were a natural consequence of ill- 
health. He never seems to have been thoroughly well for many 
days together. He implied no more than the truth when he 
speaks of his Muse as helping him through that "long disease, his 
life." Writing to Bathurst in 1728, he says that he does not ex- 
pect to enjoy any health for four days together ; and, not long 
after, Bathurst remonstrates with him for his carelessness, ask- 
ing him whether it is not enough to have the headache for four 
days in the week and be sick for the other three. It is no small 
proof of intellectual energy that he managed to do so much thorough 
work under such disadvantages, and his letters show less of the 
invalid's querulous spirit than we might well have pardoned. 
Johnson gives a painful account of his physical defects, on the 
authority of an old servant of Lord Oxford, who frequently saw 
him in his later years. He was so weak as to be unable to rise to 
dress himself without help. He was so sensitive to cold that he 
had to wear a kind of fur doublet under a coarse linen shirt ; one 
of his sides was contracted and he could scarcely stand upright 
till he was laced into aboddice made of stiff canvas ; his legs were 
so slender that he had to wear three pairs of stockings, which he 
was unable to draw on and off without help. His seat had to be 
raised to bring him to a level with common tables. In one 
of his papers in the Guardian he describes himself apparently 
as Dick Distich: "a lively little creature, with long legs and 
arms; a spider* is no ill emblem of him; he has been taken 
at a distance for a small windmill." His face, says Johnson, was 
" not displeasing," and the portraits are eminently characteristic. 
The thin, drawn features wear the expression of habitual pain, but 
are brightened up by the vivid and penetrating eye, which seems 
to be the characteristic poetical beauty. 

It was, after all, a gallant spirit which got so much work out 
of this crazy carcase, and kept it going, spite of all its feebleness, 
for fifty-six years. The servant whom Johnson quotes said that 
she was called from her bed four times in one night, " in the 
dreadful winter of Forty," to supply him with paper, lest he should 
lose a thought. His constitution was already breaking down, but 

* The same comparison is made by Cibber in a rather unsavoury passage- 



6 4 POPE. 

the intellect was still striving to save every moment allowed to him. 
His friends laughed at his habit of scribbling upon odd bits of 
paper. " Paper-sparing " Pope is the epithet bestowed upon him 
by Swift, and a great part of the Iliad is written upon the backs of 
letters. The habit seems to have been regarded as illustrative of 
his economical habits ; but it was also natural to a man who was 
on the watch to turn every fragment of time to account. If any- 
thing was to be finished, he must snatch at the brief intervals al- 
lowed by his many infirmities. Naturally, he fell into many of the 
self-indulgent and troublesome ways of the valetudinarian. He 
was constantly wanting coffee, which seems to have soothed his 
headaches ; and for this and his other wants he used to wear out 
the servants in his friends' houses by " frequent and frivolous 
errands." Yet he was apparently a kind master. His servants 
lived with him till they became friends, and he took care to pay so 
well the unfortunate servant whose sleep was broken by his calls, 
that she said that she would want no wages in a family where she 
had to wait upou Mr. Pope. Another form of self-indulgence was 
more injurious to himself. He pampered his appetite with highly- 
seasoned dishes, and liked to receive delicacies from his friends. 
His death was imputed by some of his friends, says Johnson, to "a 
silver saucepan in which it was his delight to eat potted lampreys." 
He would always get up for dinner, in spite of headache, when told 
that this delicacy was provided. Yet, as Johnson also observes, 
the excesses cannot have been very great, as they did not sooner 
cut short so fragile an existence. " Two bites and a sup more than 
your stint," says Swift, " will cost you more than others pay for a 
regular debauch. 

At home, indeed, he appears to have been generally abstemious. 
Probably the habits of his parents' little household were very 
simple ; and Pope, like Swift, knew the value of independence well 
enough to be systematically economical. Swift, indeed, had a 
more generous heart, and a lordly indifference to making money 
by his writings, which Pope, who owed his fortune chiefly to his 
Homer, did not attempt to rival. Swift alludes, in his letters, to an 
anecdote, which we may hope does not represent his habitual prac- 
tice. Pope, it appears, was entertaining a couple of friends, and 
when four glasses had been consumed from a pint, retired, saying, 
"Gentlemen, I leave you to your wine." " I tell that story to 
everybody," says Swift, "in commendation of Mr. Pope's abstemi- 
ousness ; " but he tells it, one may guess, with something of a 
rueful countenance. At times, however, it seems that Pope could 
give a " splendid dinner," and show no want of the " skill and ele- 
gance which such performances require." Pope, in fact, seems to 
have shown a combination of qualities which is not uncommon, 
though sometimes called inconsistent. He valued money as a man 
values it who has been poor and feels it essential to his comfort to 
be fairly beyond the reach of want, and was accordingly pretty 
sharp at making a bargain with a publisher or in arranging terms 
with a collaborator. But he could also be liberal on occasion. 



POPE. 65 

Johnson says that his whole income amounted to about 800/. a 
year, out of which he professed himself able to assign 100/. to 
charity ; and though the figures are doubtful, and all Pope's state- 
ments about his own proceedings liable to suspicion, he appears to 
have been often generous in helping the distressed with money, as 
well as with advice or recommendations to his powerful friends. 
Pope, by his infirmities and his talents, belonged to the dependent 
class of mankind. He was in no sense capable of standing firmly 
upon his own legs. He had a longing, sometimes pathetic and 
sometimes humiliating, for the applause of his fellows and the 
sympathy of friends. With feelings so morbidly sensitive, and with 
such a lamentable incapacity for straightforward openness in any 
relation of life, he was naturally a dangerous companion. He 
might be brooding over some fancied injury or neglect, and medi- 
tating revenge, when he appeared to be on good terms ; when really 
desiring to do a service to a friend, he might adopt some tortuous 
means for obtaining his ends, which would convert the service into 
an injury ; and, if he had once become alienated, the past friend- 
ship would be remembered by him as involving a kind of humilia- 
tion, and therefore supplying additional keenness to his resentment. 
And yet it is plain that throughout life he was always anxious to 
lean upon some stronger nature > to have a sturdy supporter whom 
he was apt to turn into an accomplice ; or at least to have some 
good-natured, easy-going companion, in whose society he might 
find repose for his tortured nerves. And therefore, though the 
story of his friendships is unfortunately intertwined with the story 
of bitter quarrels and indefensible acts of treachery, it also reveals 
a touching desire for the kind of consolation which would be most 
valuable to one so accessible to the pettiest stings of his enemies. 
He had many warm friends, moreover, who, by good fortune or 
the exercise of unusual prudence, never excited his wrath, and 
whom he repaid by genuine affection. Some of these friendships 
have become famous, and will be best noticed in connexion with 
passages in his future career. It will be sufficient if I here notice 
a few names, in order to show that a complete picture of Pope's 
life, if it could now be produced, would include many figures of 
which we only catch occasional glimpses. 

Pope, as I have said, though most closely connected with the 
Tories and Jacobites, disclaimed any close party connexion, and 
had some relations with the Whigs. Some courtesies even passed 
between him and the great Sir Robert Walpole, whose interest in 
literature was a vanishing quantity, and whose bitterest enemies 
were Pope's greatest friends. Walpole, however, as we have seen, 
asked for preferment for Pope's old friend, and Pope repaid him 
with more than one compliment. Thus, in the Epilogue to the 
Satires, he says, — 

" Seen him I have, but in his happier hour 
Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power. 
Seen him, encumber'd with the venal tribe, 
Smile without art and win without a bribe." 



66 pope. 

Another Whig statesman for whom Pope seems to have entertained 
an especially warm regard was James Craggs, Addison's successor 
as Secretary of State, who died whilst under suspicion of peculation 
in the South Sea business (1721). The Whig connexion might 
have been turned to account. Craggs, during his brief tenure of 
office, offered Pope a pension of 300/. a year (from the secret ser- 
vice money), which Pope declined, whilst saying that, if in want of 
money, he would apply to Craggs as a friend. A negotiation of 
the same kind took place with Halifax, who aimed at the glory of 
being the great literary patron. It seems that he was anxious to 
have the Homer dedicated to him, and Pope, being unwilling to 
gratify him, or, as Johnson says, being less eager for money than 
Halifax for praise, sent a cool answer, and the negotiation passed 
off. Pope afterwards revenged himself for this offence by his 
bitter satire on Bufo in the Prologue to his Satires, though he 
had not the courage to admit its obvious application. 

Pope deserves the credit of preserving his independence. He 
would not stoop low enough to take a pension at the price virtually 
demanded by the party in power. He was not. however, inaccessi- 
ble to aristocratic blandishments, and was proud to be the valued 
and petted guest in many great houses. Through Swift he had 
become acquainted with Oxford, the colleague of Bolingbroke, and 
was a frequent and intimate guest of the second Earl, from whose 
servant Johnson derived the curious information as to his habits. 
Harcourt, Oxford's Chancellor, lent him a house whilst translating 
Homer. Sheffield, the Duke of Buckingham, had been an early 
patron, and after the duke's death, Pope, at the request of his ec- 
centric duchess, the illegitimate daughter of James II., edited some 
of his works, and got into trouble for some Jacobite phrases con- 
tained in them. His most familiar friend among the opposition 
magnates was Lord Bathurst, a man of uncommon vivacity and 
good-humour. He was born four years before Pope, and died 
more than thirty years later, at the age of ninety-one. One of the 
finest passages in Burke's American speeches turns upon the vast 
changes which had taken place during Bathurst's lifetime. He 
lived to see his son Chancellor. Two years before his death the 
son left the father's dinner-table with some remark upon the ad- 
vantage of regular habits. " Now the old gentleman's gone," said 
the lively youth of eighty-nine to the remaining guests, " let's crack 
the other bottle." Bathurst delighted in planting, and Pope in 
giving him advice, and in discussing the opening of vistas and ejec- 
tion of temples, and the poet was apt to be vexed when his advice 
was not taken. 

Another friend, even more restless and comet-like in his ap- 
pearances, was the famous Peterborough, the man who had seen 
more kings and postilions than any one in Europe ; of whom 
Walsh injudiciously remarked that he had too much wit to be en- 
trusted with the command of an army; and whose victories, soon 
after the unlucky remark had been made, were so brilliant as to 
resemble strategical epigrams. Pope seems to have been dazzled 



POPE. 67 

by the amazing vivacity of the man, and has left a curious descrip- 
tion of his List days. Pope found him on the eve of the voyage in 
which he died, sk:k of an agonising disease, crying out for pain at 
night, fainting away twice in the morning, lying like a dead man 
for a time, and in the intervals of pain giving a dinner to ten peo- 
ple, laughing, talking, declaiming against the corruption of the 
times, giving directions to his workmen, and insisting upon going 
to sea in a yacht without preparations for landing anywhere in par- 
ticular. Pope seems to have been specially attracted by such men, 
with intellects as restless as his own. bin with infinitely more vital- 
ity to stand the consequent wear and tear. 

We should be better pleased if we could restore a vivid image 
of the inner circle upon which his happiness most intimately de- 
pended. In one relation of life Pope's conduct was not only 
blameless, but thoroughly loveable. He was, it is plain, the best 
of sons. Even here, it is true, he is a little too consciously vir- 
tuous. Yet when he speaks of his father and mother' there are 
tears in his voice, and it is impossible not to recognize genuine 
warmth of heart. 

" Me let the tender office long engage 
To rock the cradle of reposing age, 
With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, 
Make languor smile, and soothe the bed of death, 
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, 
And keep awhile one parent from the sky ! " * 

Such verses are a spring in the desert, a gush of the true feel- 
ing, which contrasts with the strained and factitious sentiment in 
his earlier rhetoric, and almost forces us to love the writer. Could 
Pope have preserved that higher mood, he would have held our 
affections as he often delights our intellect. 

Unluckily we can catch but few glimpses of Pope's family life ; 
of the old mother and father and the affectionate nurse, who lived 
with him till 1721, and died during a dangerous illness of his 
mother's. The father, of whom we hear little after his early criti- 
cism of the son's bad " rhymes," died in 171 7 ; and a brief note to 
Martha Blount gives Pope's feelings as fully as many pages : " My 
poor father died last night. Believe, since I don't forget you this 
moment, I never shall." The mother survived till 1733, tenderly 
watched by Pope, who would never be long absent from her, and 
whose references to her are uniformly tender and beautiful. One 
or two of her letters are preserved. " My Deare, — A letter from 
your sister just now is come and gone, Mr. Mennock and Charls 
Rackitt, to take his leve of us ; but being nothing in it, doe not 
send it. . . . Your sister is very well, but your brother is not. 
There's Mr. Blunt of Maypell Durom is dead, the same day that 
Mr. Inglefield died. My servis to Mrs. Blounts, and all that ask 

* It is curious to compare these verses with the original copy contained in a letter to 
Aaron Hill. The comparison shows how skilfully Pope polished his most successful 
passages. 



48 POPE. 

of me. I hope to hear from you, and that you are well, which is 
my dalye prayers ; this with my blessing." The old lady had 
peculiar views of orthography ; and Pope, it is said, gave her the 
pleasure of copying out some of his Homer, though the necessary 
corrections gave him and the printers more trouble than would be 
saved by such an amanuensis. Three days after her death 
he wrote to Richardson, the painter. " I thank God," he says, 
" her death was as easy as her life was innocent ; and as it cost 
her not a groan, nor even a sigh, there is yet upon her counte- 
nance such an expression of tranquillity, nay, almost of pleasure, 
that it is even enviable to behold it. It would afford the finest 
image of a saint expired that ever painter drew, and it would be 
the greatest obligation which ever that obliging art could ever be- 
stow upon a friend, if you would come and sketch it for me. I am 
sure if there be no very prevalent obstacle, you will leave any com- 
mon business to do this, and I shall hope to see you this evening 
as late as you will, or to-morrow morning as early, before this win- 
ter flower is faded." Swift's comment, on hearing the news, gives 
the only consolation which Pope could have felt. " She died in 
extreme old age," he writes, " without pain, under the care of the 
most dutiful son I have ever known or heard of, which is a felicity 
not happening to one in a million." And with her death, its most 
touching and ennobling influence faded from Pope's life. There is 
no particular merit in loving a mother, but few biographies give a 
more striking proof that the loving discharge of a common duty 
may give a charm to a whole character. It .is melancholy to add 
that we often have to appeal to this part of his story, to assure our- 
selves that Pope was really deserving of some affection. 

The part of Pope's history which naturally follows brings us 
again to the region of unsolved mysteries. The one prescription 
which a spiritual physician would have suggested in Pope's case 
would have been the love of a good and sensible woman. A 
nature so capable of tender feeling and so essentially dependent 
upon others, might have been at once soothed and supported by 
a happy domestic life ; though it must be admitted that it would 
have required no common qualifications in a wife to calm so irri 
table and jealous a spirit. Pope was unfortunate in his surround 
ings. The bachelor society of that day, not only the society of the 
Wycherleys and Cromwells, but the more virtuous society of Ad- 
dison and his friends, was certainly not remarkable for any exalted 
tone about women. Bolingbroke, Peterborough, and Bathurst, 
Pope's most admired friends, were all more or less flagrantly licen- 
tious ; and Swift's mysterious story shows that if he could love a 
woman, his love might be as dangerous as hatred. In such a 
school, Pope, eminently malleable to the opinions of his companions, 
was not likely to acquire a high standard of sentiment. His per- 
sonal defects were equally against him. His frame was not adapt- 
ed for the robust gallantry of the time. He wanted a nurse rather 
than a wife ; and if his infirmities might excite pity, pity is akin to 
contempt as well as to love. The poor little invalid, brutally 



POPE, 69 

abused for his deformity by such men as Dennis and his friends, 
was stung beyond ail self-control by their coarse laughter, and by 
the consciousness that it only echoed, in a more brutal shape, the 
judgment of the fine ladies of the time. His language about 
women, sometimes expressing coarse contempt and sometimes 
rising to ferocity, is the reaction of his morbid sensibility under 
such real and imagined scorn. 

Such feelings must be remembered in speaking briefly of two 
love affairs, if they are such, which profoundly affected his hap- 
piness. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is amongst the most con- 
spicuous figures of the time. She had been made a toast at the 
Kilcat Club at the age of eight, and she translated Epictetus 
(from the Latin) before she was twenty. She wrote verses, some 
of them amazingly coarse, though decidedly clever, and had mar- 
ried Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu in defiance of her father's will, 
though even in this, her most romantic proceeding, there are 
curious indications of a respect for prudential considerations. Her 
husband was a friend of Addison's, and a Whig; and she ac- 
companied him on an embassy to Constantinople in 1 716-17, 
where she wrote the excellent letters published after her death, 
and whence she imported the practice of inoculation, in spite of 
much opposition. A distinguished leader of society, she was also 
a woman of shrewd intellect and masculine character. In 1739 
she left her husband, though no quarrel preceded or followed the 
separation, and settled for many years in Italy. Her letters are 
characteristic of the keen woman of the world, with an underlying 
vein of nobler feeling, perverted by harsh experience into a pre- 
vailing cynicism. Pope had made her acquaintance before she 
left England. He wrote poems to her and corrected her verses 
till she cruelly refused his services, on the painfully plausible 
ground that he would claim all the good for himself and leave all 
the bad for her. They corresponded during her first absence 
abroad. The common sense is all on the lady's side, whilst Pope 
puts on his most elaborate manners and addresses her in the 
strained compliments of old-fashioned gallantry. He acts the 
lover, though it is obviously mere acting, and his language is 
stained by indelicacies, which could scarcely offend Lady Mary, if 
we may judge her by her own poetical attempts. The most char- 
acteristic of Pope's letters related to an incident at Stanton 
Harcourt. Two rustic lovers were surprised by a thunder-storm in 
a field near the house ; they were struck by lightning, and found 
lying dead in each other's arms. Here was an admirable chance 
for Pope, who was staying in the house with his friend Gay. He 
wrote off a beautiful letter to Lady Mary,* descriptive of the event 
— a true prose pastoral in the Strephon and Chloe style. He got 

* Pope, after his quarrel, wanted to sink his previous intimacy with Lady Mary, and 
printed this letter as addressed by Gay to Fortescue, adding one to the innumerable mys- 
tifications of his correspondence. Mr. Moy Thomas doubts also whether Lady Mary'; 
answer was really sent at the assigned date. The contrast of sentiment is equally char 
acteristic in any case. 



7° 



POPE. 



Lord Harcourt to erect a monument over the common grave of the 
lovers, and composed a couple of epitaphs, which he submitted to 
Lady Mary's opinion. She replied by a cruel dose of common 
sense, and a doggerel epitaph, which turned his fine phrases into 
merciless ridicule. If the lovers had been spared, she suggests, 
the first year might probably have seen a beaten wife and a de- 
ceived husband, cursing their marriage chain. 

" Now they are happy in their doom, 
For Pope has writ upon their tomb." 

On Lady Mary's return the intimacy was continued. She 
took a house at Twickenham. He got Kneller to paint her 
portrait, and wrote letters expressive of humble adoration. But 
the tone which did well enough when the pair were separated by 
the whole breadth of Europe, was less suitable when they were in 
the same parish. After a time the intimacy faded and changed 
into mutual antipathy. The specific cause of the quarrel, if cause 
there was, has not been clearly revealed. One account, said to 
come from Lady Mary, is at least not intrinsically* improbable. 
According to this story, the unfortunate poet forgot for a moment 
that he was a contemptible cripple, and forgot also the existence of 
Mr.Edward Wortley Montagu, and a passionate declaration of love 
drew from the lady an " immoderate fit of laughter." Ever after- 
wards, it is added, he was her implacable enemy. Doubtless, if 
the story be true, Lady Mary acted like a sensible woman of the 
world, and Pope was silly as well as immoral. And yet one can- 
not refuse some pity to the unfortunate wretch, thus roughly 
jerked back into the consciousness that a fine lady might make a 
pretty plaything of him, but could not seriously regard him with 
anvthing but scorn. Whatever the precise facts, a breach of some 
sort might have been anticipated. A game of gallantry in which 
the natural parts are inverted, and the gentleman acts the senti- 
mentalist to the lady's performance of the shrewd cynic, is likely to 
have awkward results. Pope brooded over his resentment, and 
years afterwards took a revenge only too characteristic. The first 
of his imitations of Horace appeared in 1733. It contained a 
couplet, too gross for quotation, making the most outrageous im- 
putation upon the character of " Sappho." Now. the accusation 
itself had no relation whatever either to facts or even (as I sup- 
pose) to any existing scandal. It was simply throwing filth at 
random. Thus, when Lady Mary took it to herself, and applied to 
Pope through Peterborough for an explanation, Pope could make 
a defence verbally impregnable. There was no reaaon why Lady 
Mary should fancy that such a cap fitted: and it was far more ap- 
propriate, as he added, to other women notorious for immorality as 

* Mr. Moy Thomas, in his edition of Lady Mary's letters, considers this story to be 
merely an echo of old scandal, and makes a different conjecture as to the immediate cause 
I |uarrel. His conjecture seems very improbable to me ; but the declaration story i/ 
;ly of very doubtful authenticity. 



POPE. *I 

well as authorship. In fact, however, there can be no doubt that 
Pope intended his abuse to reach its mark. Sappho was an 
obvious name for the most famous of poetic ladies. Pope himself, 
in one of his last letters to her, says that fragments of her writing 
would please him like fragments of Sappho's ; and their mediator, 
Peterborough, writes of her under the same name iri some com- 
plimentary and once well-known verses to Mrs. Howard. Pope 
had himself alluded to her as Sappho in some verses addressed 
(about 1722) to another lady, Judith Cowper, afterwards Mrs. 
Madan, who was for a time the object of some of his artificial gal- 
lantry. The only thing that can be said is that his abuse was a 
sheer piece of Billingsgate, too devoid of plausibility to be mure 
than an expression of virulent hatred. He was like a dirty boy 
who throws mud from an ambush, and declares that he did not see 
the victim be-spattered.* 

A bitter and humiliating quarrel followed. Lord Hervey, who 
had been described as " Lord Fanny," in the same satire, joined 
with his friend, Lady Mary, in writing lampoons upon Pope. The 
best known was a copy of verses, chiefly, if not exclusively, by Lady 
Mary, in which Pope is brutally taunted with the personal deform- 
ities of his " wretched little carcase," which, it seems, are the only 
cause of his being " unwhipt, unblanketed, unkicked." One verse 
seems to have stung him more deeply, which says that his " crabbed 
numbers " are 

" Hard as his heart and as his birth obscure." 

To this and other assaults Pope replied by a long letter, sup- 
pressed, however, for the time, which, as Johnson says exhibits to 
later readers " nothing but tedious malignity," and is in fact, a 
careful raking together of everything likely to give pain to his vic- 
tim. It was not published till 751, when both Pope and Hervey 
were dead. In his later writings he made references to Sappho, 
which fixed the name upon her, and amongst other pleasant insin- 
uations, speaks of a weakness which she shared with Dr. Johnson 
— an inadequate appreciation of clean linen. More malignant ac- 
cusations are implied both in his acknowledged and anonymous 
writings. The most ferocious of all his assaults, however, is the 
character of Sporus, that is, Lord Hervey, in the epistle to Ar- 
buthnot, where he seems to be actually screaming with malignant 
fury. He returns the taunts as to effeminacy, and calls his adver- 
sary a "mere white curd of asses' milk," — an innocent drink, which 
he was himself in the habit of consuming. 

* Another couplet in the second book of the Dunciad about "hapless Monsieur " and 
" Lady Maries," was also applied at the time to Lady M. W. Montagu : and Pope in a 
later note affects to deny, thus really pointing the allusion. But the obvious meaning of 
the whole passage is that " duchesses and Lady Maries " might be personated by aban- 
doned women, which would certainly be unpleasant for them, but does not imply any im- 
putation upon their character. If Lady Mary was really the author of a " Pop upon 
Pope " — a story of Pope's supposed whipping in the vein of his own attack upon Dennis, 
she already considered him as the author of some scandal. The line in the Dunciad 
was taken to allude to a story about a M. Remond which has been fully cleared up. 



72 



POPE. 



We turn < ' dly from these miserable hostilities, disgraceful to 
all concerned. Were any excuse available for Pope, it would be 
in the brutality of taunts, coming not only from the rough dwellers 
in Grub-street, but from the most polished representatives of the 
highest classes, upon personal defects, which the most ungenerous 
assailants might surely have spared. But it must also be granted 
that Pope was neither the last to give provocation, nor at all in- 
inclined to refrain from the use of poisoned weapons. 

The other connexion of which I have spoken has also its mys- 
tery — like everything else in Pope's career. Pope had been early 
acquainted with Teresa and Martha Blount. Teresa was born in the 
same year as Pope, and Martha two years later.* They were 
daughters of Lister Blount, of Mapledurham ; and after his death, 
in 1 710, and the marriage of their only brother, in 1 71 1, they lived 
with their mother in London, and passed much of the summer near 
Twickenham. They seem to have been lively young women who 
had been educated at Paris. Teresa was the most religious, and 
the greatest lover of London society. 1 have already quoted a 
passage or two from the early letters addressed to the two sisters. 
It has also to be said that he was guilty of writing to them stuff 
which it is inconceivable that any decent man should have commu- 
nicated to a modest woman. They do not seem to have taken 
offence. He professes himself the slave of both alternately or to- 
gether. "Even from my infancy," he says (in 1714), "I have 
been in love with one or other of you week by week, and my jour- 
ney to Bath fell out in the 376th week of the reign of my sovereign 
lady Sylvia. At the present writing hereof, it is the 389th week of 
the reign of your most serene majesty, in whose service I was listed 
some weeks before I beheld your sister." He had suggested to 
Lady Mary that the concluding lines of Eloisa contained a deli- 
cate compliment to her ; and he characteristically made a similar 
insinuation to Martha Blount about the same passage. Pope was 
decidedly an economist even of his compliments. Some later 
letters are in less artificial language, and there is a really touching 
and natural letter to Teresa in regard to an illness of her sister's. 
After a time, we find that some difficulty has arisen. He feels that 
his presence gives pain ; when he comes he either makes her (ap- 
parently Teresa) uneasy, or he sees her unkind. Teresa, it would 
seem, is jealous, and disapproves of his attentions to Martha. In 
the midst of this we find that in 171 7 Pope settled an annuity upon 
Teresa of 40/. a year for six years, on condition of her not being 
married during that time. The fact has suggested various specu- 
lations, but was, perhaps, only a part of some family arrangement, 
made convenient by the diminished fortunes of the ladies. What- 
ever the history, Pope gradually became attached to Martha, and 
simultaneously came to regard Teresa with antipathy. Martha, in 

* The statements as to the (late of the acquaintance are contradictory. Martha told 
Spence that she first knew Pope as a " very little girl,'' but added that it was after the 
publication of the Essay on Criticism, when she was twenty-one J and at another time, 
that it was after he had begun the Illiad, which vras later than part of the published cor 
respondence. 



POPE. 73 

fact, became by degrees almost a member of his household. His 
correspondents take for granted that she is his regular companion. 
He writes of her to Gay, in 1730, as "a friend — a woman friend, 
God help me ! — with whom I have spent three or four hours a day 
these fifteen years." In his last years, when he was most depend- 
ent upon kindness, he seems to have expected that she should be 
invited to any house which he was himself to visit. Such a close 
connexion naturally caused some scandal. In 1725 he defends 
himself against " villanous lying tales " of this kind to his old 
friend Caryll, with whom the Blounts were connected. At the 
same time he is making bitter complaints of Teresa. He accused 
her afterwards (1729) of having an intrigue with a married man, of 
" striking, pinching, and abusing her mother to the utmost shame- 
fulness." The mother, he thinks, is too meek to resent this tyr- 
anny, and Martha, as it appears, refuses to believe the reports 
against her sister. Pope audaciously suggests that it would be a 
good thing if the mother could be induced to retire to a convent, 
and is anxious to persuade Martha to leave so painful a home. The 
same complaints reappear in many letters, but the position remained 
unaltered. It is impossible to say with any certainty what may 
have been the real facts. Pope's mania for suspicion deprives his 
suggestions of the slightest value. The only inference to be drawn 
is that he drew closer to Martha Blount as years went by, and was 
anxious that she should become independent of her family. This 
naturally led to mutual dislike and suspicion, but nobody can now 
sav whether Teresa pinched her mother, nor what would have been 
her account of Martha's relations to Pope. 

Johnson repeats a story that Martha neglected Pope " with 
shameful unkindness," in his later years. It is clearly exaggerated 
or quite unfounded. At any rate, the poor sickly man, in his pre- 
mature and childless old age, looked up to her with fond affection 
and left to her nearly the whole of his fortune. His biographers have 
indulged in discussions — surely superfluous — as to the morality 
of the connexion. There is no question of seduction, or of tam- 
pering with the affections of an innocent woman. Pope was but 
too clearly disqualified from acting the part of Lothario. There 
was not in his case any Vanessa to give a tragic turn to the con- 
nexion, which otherwise resembled Swift's connexion with Stella. 
Miss Blount, from all that appears, was quite capable of taking 
care of herself, and, had she wished for marriage, need only have 
intimated her commands to her lover. It is probable enough that, 
the relations between them led to very unpleasant scenes in her 
family ; but she did not suffer otherwise in accepting Pope's atten- 
tions. The probability seems to be that the friendship had become 
imperceptibly closer, and that what began as an idle affectation of 
gallantry was slowly changed into a devoted attachment, but not 
until Pope's health was so broken that marriage would then, if not 
always, have appeared to be a mockery. 

Poets have a bad reputation as husbands. Strong passions 
and keen sensibilities may easily disqualify a man for domestic 



74 



POPE. 



tranquillity, and prompt a revolt against rules essential to social 
welfare. Pope, like other poets from Shakspeare to Shelley, was 
unfortunate in his love affairs ; but his ill-fortune took a charac- 
teristic shape. He was not carried away, like Byron and Burns, by 
overpowering passions. Rather the emotional power which lay in 
his nature was prevented from displaying itself by his physical 
infirmities, and his strange trickiness and morbid irritability. A 
man who could not make tea without a stratagem, could hardly be a 
downright lover. We may imagine that he would at once make 
advances and retract them ; that he would be intolerably touchy 
and suspicious; that every coolness would be interpreted as a 
deliberate insult, and that the slightest hint would be enough to set 
his jealousy in a flame. A woman would feel that, whatever his 
genius and his genuine kindliness, one thing was impossible with 
him — that is, a real confidence in his sincerity: and therefore, on 
the whole, it may, perhaps, be reckoned as a piece of good fortune 
for the most wayward and excitable of sane mankind that, if he 
never fully gained the most essential condition of all human happi- 
ness, he yet formed a deep and lasting attachment to a woman who, 
more or less, returned his feeling. In a life so full of bitterness, so 
harassed by physical pain, one is glad to think, even whilst admit- 
ting that the suffering was in great part foolish self-torture, and in 
part inflicted as a retribution for injuries to others, that some glow 
of feminine kindliness might enlighten the dreary stages of his pro- 
gress through life. The years left to him after the death of his 
mother were few and evil, and it would be hard to grudge him such 
consolation as he could receive from the glances of Patty Blount's 
blue eyes — the eyes which, on Walpole's testimony, were the last 
remains of her beauty. 



POPE. 



75 



CHAPTER V. 

THE WAR WITH THE DUNCES. 

In the Dunciad, published soon after the Odyssey, Pope 
laments ten years spent as a commentator and translator. He was 
not without compensation. The drudgery — for the latter part of 
his task must have been felt as drudgery — onceover, he found him- 
self in a thoroughly independent position, still on the right side of 
forty, and able to devote his talents to any task which might please 
him. The task which he actually chose was not calculated to pro- 
mote his happiness. We must look back to an earlier period to 
explain its history. During the last years of Queen Anne, Pope 
had belonged to a " little senate " in which Swift was the chief 
figure. Though Swift did not exercise either so gentle or so 
imperial a sway as Addison, the cohesion between the more inde- 
pendent members of this rival clique was strong and lasting. They 
amused themselves by projecting the Scriblerus Club, a body which 
never had, it would seem, any definite organization, but was held to 
exist for the prosecution of a design never fully executed. Marti- 
nus Scriblerus was the name of an imaginary pedant — a precursor 
and relative of Dr. Dryasdust — whose memoirs and works were to 
form a satire upon stupidity in the guise of learning. The various 
members of the club were to share in the compilation ; and if such 
joint-stock undertakings were practicable in literature, it would be 
difficult to collect a more brilliant set of contributors. After Swift 
— the terrible humourist of whom we can hardly think without a 
mixture of horror and compassion— the chief members were Atter- 
bury, Arbuthnot, Gay, Parnell, and Pope himself. Parnell, an 
amiable man, died in 171 7, leaving works which were edited by 
Pope in 1722. Atterbury, a potential Wolsey or Laud born in an 
uncongenial period, was a man of fine literary taste — a warm ad- 
mirer _ of Milton (though he did exhort Pope to put Samson 
Agonistes into civilised costume — one of the most unlucky sugges- 
tions ever made by mortal man), a judicious critic of Pope himself, 
and one who had already given proofs of his capacity in literary 
warfare by his share in the famous controversy with Bentley. 
Though no one now doubts the measureless superiority of Bentley, 
the clique of Swift and Pope still cherished the belief that the wit 
of Atterbury and his allies had triumphed over the ponderous 
learning of the pedant. Arbuthnot, whom Swift had introduced to 
Pope as a man who could do even ihing but walk, was an amiable 



7 6 



POPE 



and accomplished physician. He was a strong Tory and High- 
Churchman, and retired for a time to France upon the death of 
Anne and the overthrow of his party. He returned, however, to 
England, resumed his practice, and won Pope's warmest gratitude 
by his skill and care. He was a man of learning, and had employed 
it in an attack upon Woodward's geological speculations, as already 
savouring of heterodoxy. He possessed also a vein of genuine 
humour, resembling that of Swift, though it has rather lost its 
savour, perhaps, because it was not salted by the Dean's misan- 
thropic bitterness. If his good humour weakened his wit, it gained 
him the affections of his friends, and was never soured by the 
sufferings of his later years. Finally, John Gay, though fat, lazy, 
and wanting in manliness of spirit, had an illimitable flow of good- 
tempered banter ; and if he could not supply the learning of Arbuth- 
not, he could give what was more valuable, touches of fresh natural 
simplicity, which still explain the liking of his friends. Gay, as 
Johnson says, was the general favourite of the wits, though a play- 
fellow rather than a partner, and treated with more fondness than 
respect. Pope seems to have loved him better than any one, and 
was probably soothed by his easy-going, unsuspicious temper. 
They were of the same age ; and Gay, who had been apprenticed 
to a linen-draper, managed to gain notice by his poetical talents, 
and was taken up by various great people. Pope said to him that 
he wanted independence of spirit, which is indeed obvious enough. 
He would have been a fitting inmate of Thomson's Castle of Indo- 
lence. He was one of those people who consider that Providence 
is bound to put food into their mouths without giving them any 
trouble ; and, as sometimes happens, his draft upon the general 
system of things was honoured. He was made comfortable by 
various patrons ; the Duchess of Queensberry petted him in his 
later years, and the duke kept his money for him. His friends 
chose to make a grievance of the neglect of Government to add to 
his comfort by a good place ; they encouraged him to refuse the 
only place offered as not sufficiently dignified ; and he even became 
something of a martyr when his Polly, a sequel to the Beggars 1 
Opera, was prohibited by the Lord Chamberlain, and a good sub- 
scription made him ample amends. Pope has immortalised the com- 
plaint by lamenting the fate of " neglected genius " in the Epis- 
tle to Arbitthnot, and declaring that the " sole return " of all Gay's 
" blameless life " was 

" My verse and Queensberry weeping o'er thy urn." 

Pope's alliance with Gay had various results. Gay continued 
the war with Ambrose Philips by writing burlesque pastorals, of 
which Johnson truly says that they show " the effect of reality and 
truth, even when the intention was to show them orovclling and 
degraded." They may still be "lanced at with pleasure. Soon 
after the publication of the mock pastorals, the two friends, in 
company with Arbuthnot, had made an adventure more in the 
gpirit of the Scriblerus Club. A farce called Three J lours afte? 



POPE. 



77 



Marriage was produced and damned in 171 /. It was intended 
(amongst other things) to satirise Pope's old enemy Dennis, called 
" Sir Tremendous," as an embodiment of pedantic criticism, and 
Arbuthnot's old antagonist Woodward. A taste for fossils, mum- 
mies or antiquities was at that time regarded as a fair butt for un- 
sparing ridicule ; but the three great wits managed their assault 
so clumsily as to become ridiculous themselves ; and Pope, as we 
shall presently see, smarted as usual under failure. 

After Swift's retirement to Ireland, and during Pope's absorp- 
tion in Homer, the Scriblerus Club languished. Some fragments, 
however, of the great design were executed by the four chief mem- 
bers, and the dormant project was revived, after Pope had finished 
his Homer, on occasion of the last two visits of Swift to England. 
He passed six months in England, from March to August, 1726, 
and had brought with him the MS. of Gulliver's Travels, the great- 
est satire produced by the Scriblerians. He passed a great part 
of his time at Twickenham, and in rambling with Pope or Gay 
about the country. Those who do not know how often the en- 
counter of brilliant wits tends to neutralise rather than stimulate 
their activity, may wish to have been present at a dinner which 
took place at Twickenham on July 6, 1726, when the party was 
made up of Pope, the most finished poet of the day; Swift, the 
deepest humourist; Bolingbroke, the most brilliant politician; 
Congreve, the wittiest writer of comedy; and Gay, the author of 
the most successful burlesque. The envious may console them- 
selves by thinking that Pope very likely went to sleep, that Swift 
was deaf and overbearing, that Congreve and Bolingbroke were 
painfully witty, and Gay frightened into silence. When, in 1727, 
Swift again visited England, and stayed at Twickenham, the clouds 
were gathering. The scene is set before us- in some of Swift's 
verses : — 

" Pope has the talent well to speak, 
But not to reach the ear ; 
His loudest voice is low and weak, 
The dean too deaf to her. 

" Awhile they on each other look, 
Then different studies choose; 
The dean sits plodding o'er a book, 
Pope walks and courts the muse." 

"Two sick friends," says Swift in a letter written after his 
return to Ireland, "never did well together." It is plain that their 
infirmities had been mutually trying, and on the last day of August 
Swift suddenly withdrew from Twickenham, in spite of Pope's 
entreaties. He had heard of the last illness of Stella, which was 
finally to crush his happiness. Unable to endure the company of 
friends, he went to London in very bad health, and thence, after a 
short stay, to Ireland, leaving behind him a letter which, says 
Pope, "affected me so much that it made me like a girl." It was 



78 POPE. 

a gloomy parting, and the last. The stern Dean retired to die 
"like a poisoned rat in a bole," after long years of bitterness, and 
finally of slow intellectual decay He always retained perfect con- 
fidence in his friend's affection. Poor Pope, as he says in the 
verses on his own death, — 

" Will grieve a month, and Gay 
A week, and Arbuthnot a day ; " 

and they were the only friends to whom he attributes sincere 
sorrow. 

Meanwhile two volumes of Miscellanies, the joint work of the 
four wits, appeared in June, 1727; and a third in March, 1728. A 
fourth, hastily got up, was published in 1732. They do not ap- 
pear to have been successful. The copyright of the three volumes 
was sold for 225/., of which Arbuthnot and Gay received each 
50/., whilst the remainder was shared between Pope and Swift; 
and Swift seems to have given his part, according to his custom, 
to the widow of a respectable Dublin bookseller. Pope's corre- 
spondence with the publisher shows that he was entrusted with the 
financial details, and arranged them with the sharpness of a prac- 
tised man of business. The whole collection was made up in 
great part of old scraps, and savoured of book-making, though 
Pope speaks complacently of the joint volumes, in which he says 
to Swift, " We look like friends, side by side, serious and merry 
by turns, conversing interchangeably, and walking down, hand hi 
hand, to posterity." Of the various fragments contributed by 
Pope, there is only one which need be mentioned here — the trea- 
tise on Bathos in the third volume, in which he was helped by 
Arbuthnot. He (old Swift privately that he had " entirely meth- 
odised and in a manner written it all," though he afterwards chose 
to denounce the very same statement as a lie when the treatise 
brought him into trouble. It is the most amusing of his prose 
writings, consisting essentially of a collection of absurdities from 
various authors, with some apparently invented for the occasion, 
such as the familiar 

" Ye gods, annihilate but space and time, 
And make two lovers happy ! " 

and ending with the ingenious receipt to make an epic poem. 
Most of the passages ridiculed— and, it must be said, very deserv- 
edly -were selected from some of the various writers to whom, for 
one reason or another, he owed a grudge. Ambrose Philips and 
Dennis, his old enemies, and Theobald, who had criticised his 
edition of Shakspeare, supply several illustrations. Blackmore had 
spoken very strongly of the immorality of (he wits in some prose 
essays; Swift's Tale of a 7'i//>, and a parody of the first psalm, 
anonymously circulated, but known to be Pope's, had been severely 
condemned; and Pope tool, a cutting revenge by plentiful citations 
from Ulackmore's most ludicrous bombast; and even Broome, his 



POPE. 



79 



colleague in Homer, came in for a passing stroke, for Broome and 
Pope were now at enmity. Finally, Pope fired a general volley into 
the whole crowd of bad authors by grouping them under the head 
of various animals — tortoises, parrots, frogs, and so forth — and add- 
ing under each head the initials of the persons described. He had 
the audacity to declare that the initials were selected at random. 
If so, a marvellous coincidence made nearly every pair of letters 
correspond to the name and surname of some contemporary poetas- 
ter. The classification was rather vague, but seems to have given 
special offence. 

Meanwhile Pope was planning a more elaborate Campaign 
against his adversaries. He now appeared for tiie first time as a 
formal satirist, and the Dunciad, in which he came forward as the 
champion of Wit, taken in its broad sense, against its natural 
antithesis, Dulness, is in some respects his masterpiece. It is 
addressed to Swift, who probably assisted at some of its early 
stages. O thou, exclaims the poet — 

" O thou, whatever title please thine ear, 
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver! 
Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air, 
Or laugh and shake in Rabelais's easy-chair — " 

And we feel that Swift is present in spirit throughout the composi- 
tion. " The great fault of the Dunciad" says Warton, an intelli- 
gent and certainly not an over-severe critic, " is the excessive 
vehemence of the satire. It has been compared," he adds, "to the 
geysers propelling a vast column of boiling water by the force of 
subterranean fire ; " and he speaks of some one who, after reading 
a book of the Diuiciad, always soothes himself by a canto of the 
Faery Queen. Certainly a greater contrast could not easily be 
suggested ; and yet I think that the remark requires at least modifi- 
cation. The Dunciad, indeed, is beyond all question, full of coarse 
abuse. The second book, in particular, illustrates that strange de- 
light in the physically disgusting which Johnson notices as charac- 
teristic of Pope and his master, Swift. In the letter prefixed-to the 
Dunciad, Pope tries to justify his abuse of his enemies by the 
example of Boileau, whom he appears to have considered as his 
great prototype. But Boileau would have been revolted by the 
brutal images which Pope does not hesitate to introduce ; and it is 
a curious phenomenon that the poet who is pre-eminently the 
representative of polished society should openly take such pleasure 
in unmixed filth. Polish is sometimes very thin. It has been sug- 
gested that Swift, who was with Pope during the composition, may 
have been directly responsible for some of these brutalities. At 
any rate, as I have said, Pope has here been working in the Swift 
spirit, and this gives, I think, the key-note of his Dunciad. 

The geyser comparison is so far misleading that Pope is not in 
his most spiteful mood. There is not that infusion of personal 
venom which appears so strongly in the character of Sporus and 
similar passages. In reading them we feel that the poet is writhing 



80 POPE. 

under some bitter mortification, and trying with concentrated malice 
to sting his adversary in the-tenderest place's. We hear a tortured 
victim screaming out the shrillest taunts at his tormentor. The 
abuse in the Dunciad is by comparison broad and even jovial. 
The tone at which Pope is aiming is that suggested by the "laugh- 
ing and shaking in Rabelais's easy-chair." It is meant to be a 
boisterous guffaw from capacious lungs, an enormous explosion of 
superlative contempt for the mob of stupid thick-skinned scribblers. 
They are to be overwhelmed witli gigantic cachinnations. clucked in 
the dirtiest of drains, rolled over and over with rough horse-play, 
pelted with the least savoury of rotten eggs, not skilfully anatomised 
or pierced with dexterously directed needles. Pope has really 
stood by too long, watching their tiresome antics and receiving their 
taunts, and he must, once for all, speak out and give them a lesson. 

" Out with it Dunciad ! let the secret pass, 
That secret to each fool — that he's an ass ! " 

That is his account of his feelings in the prologue to the Satires, 
and he answers the probable remonstrance. 

"You think this cruel ? Take it for a rule, 
No creature smarts so little as a fool." 

To reconcile us to such laughter, it should have a more genial tone 
than Pope could find in his nature. We ought too feel, and we cer- 
tainly do not feel, that after the joke has been fired off there should 
be some possibility of reconciliation, or, at least, we should find 
some recognition of the fact that the victims are not to be hated 
simply because they were not such clever fellows as Pope. There 
is something cruel in Pope's laughter, as in Swift's. The missiles 
are not mere filth, but are weighted with hard materials that bruise 
and mangle, He professes that his enemies were the first aggres- 
sors, a plea which can be only true in part ; and he defends him- 
self, feebly enough, against the obvious charge that he has ridiculed 
men for being obscure, poor, and stupid — faults not to be amended 
by satire, nor rightfully provocative of enmity. In fact, Pope 
knows in his better moments that a man is not necessarily wicked 
because he sleeps on a bulk, or writes verses in a garret ; but he 
also knows that to mention those facts will give his enemies pain, 
and he cannot refrain from the use of so handy a weapon. 

Such faults make one half ashamed of confessing to reading the 
Dunciad 'with pleasure; and yet it is frequently written with such 
force and freedom that we half pardon the cruel little persecutor, 
and admire the vigour with which he throws clown the gauntlet to 
\\v natural enemies of genius. The Dunciad is modelled upon the 
Mac Flecknoe, in which Dryden celebrates the appointment of 
Elkanah Shadwell to succeed Flecknoe as monarch of the realms 
of Dulness, and describes the coronation ceremonies. Pope 
imitates many passages, and adopts the general design. Though 
he does not equal the vigoui of some of Dryden's lines, and wages 



POPE. 8l 

war in a more ungenerous spirit, the Dunciad has a wider scope 
than its original, and shows Pope's command of his weapons in 
occasional felicitous phrases, in the vigour of the versification, and 
in the general sense of form and clear presentation of the scene 
imagined. For a successor to the great empire of Dulness he chose 
(in the original form of the poem) the unlucky Theobald, a writer 
to whom the merit is attributed of having first illustrated Shak- 
speare by a study of the contemporary literature. In doing this he 
had fallen foul of Pope, who could claim no such merit for his own 
editorial work, and Pope, therefore, regarded him as a grovelling 
antiquarian. As such, he was a fit pretender enough to the throne 
once occupied by Settle. The Dunciad begins by a spirited de- 
scription of the goddess brooding in her cell upon the eve of a Lord 
Mayor's day, when the proud scene was o'er, 

" But lived in Settle's numbers one day more." 

The predestined hero is meanwhile musing in his Gothic library, 
and addresses a solemn invocation to Dulness, who accepts his 
sacrifice — a pile of his own works — transports him to her temple, 
and declares him to be the legitimate successor to the former 
rulers of her kingdom. The second book describes the games held 
in honour of the new ruler. Some of them are, as. a frank critic 
observes, " beastly; " but a brief report of the least objectionable 
may serve as a specimen of the whole performance. Dulness, with 
her court, descends 

"To where Fleet Ditch with disemboguing streams 
Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames, 
The king of dykes than whom no sluice of mud 
With deeper stable blots the silver flood. — 
Here strip, my children, here at once leap in ; 
Here prove who best can dash through thick and thin, 
And who the most in love of dirt excel." 

And certainly, by the poet's account, they all love it as well as their 
betters. The competitors in this contest are drawn from the unfor- 
tunates immersed in what Warburton calls " the common sink of 
all such writers (as Ralph) — apolitical newspaper." They were all 
hateful, partly because they were on the side of Walpole, and there- 
fore, by Pope's logic, unprincipled hirelings, and more, because in 
that cause, as others, they had assaulted Pope and his friend. There 
is Oldmixon, a hack writer employed in compilations, who accused 
Atterbury of falsifying Clarendon, and was accused of himself 
falsifying historical documents in the interests of Whiggism ; and 
Smedley, an Irish clergyman, a special enemy of Swift's, who had 
just printed a collection of assaults upon the miscellanies called 
Gulliveriana ; and Concanen, another Irishman, an ally of Theo- 
bald's, and (it may be noted) of Warburton's, who attacked the 
Bathos, and received — of course, for the worst services — an appoint 
ment in Jamaica ; and Arnall, one of Walpole's most favoured 



82 POPE. 

journalists, who was said to have received for himself or others 
near 11,000/. in four years. Each dives in a way supposed to be 
characteristic, Oldmixon with the pathetic exclamation, 

" And am I now threescore ? 
Ah, why, ye gods, should two and two make four ? " 

Concanen, " a cold, long-winded native of the deep," dives per- 
severingly, but without causing a ripple in the stream : 

" Not so bold Arnall — with a weight of skull 
Furious he dives, precipitately dull," 

and ultimately emerges to claim the prize, " with half the bottom 
on his head." But Smedley, who has been given up for lost, comes 
up, 

" Shaking the horrors of his sable brows," 

and relates how he has been sucked in by the mud-nymphs, and 
how they have shown him a branch of Styx which here pours into 
the Thames, and diffuses its soporific vapours over the temple and 
its purlieus. He is solemnly welcomed by Milbourn (a reverend 
antagonist of Dryden), who tells him to " receive these robes which 
once were mine," 

" Dulness is sacred in a sound divine." 

The games are concluded in the second book ; and in the third 
the hero, sleeping in the Temple of Dulness, meets in a vision the 
ghost of Settle, who reveals to him the future of his empire ; tells 
how Dulness is to overspread the world, and revive the triumphs 
of Goths and monks ; how the hated Dennis, and Gildon, and 
others, are to overwhelm scorners, and set up at court, and preside 
over arts and sciences, though a fit of temporary sanity causes him 
to give a warning to the deists 1 — 

" But learn, ye dunces ! not to scorn your God — " 

and how posterity is to witness the decay of the stage, under a 
deluge of silly farce, opera, and sensation dramas ; how bad arch- 
itects are to deface the works of Wren and Inigo Jones ; whilst 
the universities and public schools are to be given up to games 
and idleness, and the birch is to be abolished. 

Fragments of the prediction have not been entirely falsified, 
though the last couplet intimates a hope : 

" Enough ! enough ! the raptured monarch cries, 
And through the ivory gate the vision flies." 

The Dunciad was thus a declaration of war against the whole 
tribe of scribblers; and, like other such declarations, it brought 
more consequences than Pope foresaw. It introduced Pope to a 
very dangerous line of conduct. Swift had written to Pope in 



POPE. 83 

1725 : "Take care that the bad poets do not outwit you, as they 
have served the good ones in every age, whom they have provoked 
to transmit their names to posterity ; " and the Dunciad has been 
generally censured from Swift's point of view. Satire, it is said, 
is wasted upon such insignificant persons. To this Pope might 
have replied, with some plausibility, that the interest of satire 
must always depend upon its internal qualities, not upon our inde- 
pendent knowledge of its object. Though Gildon and Arnall are 
forgotten, the type "dunce "is eternal. The warfare, however, 
was demoralising in another sense. Whatever may have been the 
injustice of Pope's attacks upon individuals, the moral standard of 
the Grub-street population was far from exalted. The poor scrib- 
bler had too many temptations to sell himself, and to evade the 
occasional severity of the laws of libel by humiliating contrivances. 
Moreover, the uncertainty of the law of copyright encouraged the 
lower class of booksellers to undertake all kinds of piratical enter- 
prises, and to trade in various ways upon the fame of well-known 
authors, by attributing trash to them, or purloining and publishing 
what the authors would have suppressed. Dublin was to London 
what New York is now, and successful books were at once repro- 
duced in Ireland. Thus the lower strata of the literary class fre- 
quently practised with impunity all manner of more or less discred- 
itable trickery, and Pope, with his morbid propensity for mystifica- 
tion, was only too apt a pupil in such arts. Though the tone of his 
public utterances was always of the loftiest, he was like a civilized 
commander who, in carrying on a war with savages, finds it con- 
venient to adopt the practices which he professes to disapprove. 

The whole publication of the Dunciad was surrounded with 
tricks, intended partly to evade possible consequences, and partly 
to excite public interest, or to cause amusement at the expense of 
the bewildered victims. Part of the plot was concerted with Swift, 
who, however, does not appear to have been quite in the secret. 
The complete poem was intended to appear with an elaborate 
mock commentary by Scriblerus, explaining some of the allu- 
sions and with " proeme, prolegomena, testimonia scriptorum, 
index auctorum, and notae variorum." In the first instance, 
however, it appeared in a mangled form without this bur- 
lesque apparatus or the lines to Swift.- Four editions were 
issued in this form in 1728, and with a mock notice from the pub- 
lisher, expressing a hope that the author would be provoked to 
give a more perfect edition. This, accordingly, appeared in 1720. 
Pope seems to have been partly led to this device by a principle 
which he avowed to Warburton. When he had anything specially 
sharp to say he kept it for a second edition, where it would, he 
thought, pass with less offence. But he may also have been under 
the impression that all the mystery of apparently spurious editions 
would excite public curiosity. He adopted other devices for 
avoiding unpleasant consequences. It was possible that his vic- 
tims might appeal to the law. In order to throw dust in their eyes, 
two editions appeared in Dublin and London — the Dublin edition 



84 POPE. 

professing to be a reprint from a London edition, whilst the Lon- 
don edition professed in the same way to be the reprint of a Dub- 
lin edition. To oppose another obstacle to prosecutors, he as- 
signed the Dunciad \o three noblemen — Lords Bathurst, Burling- 
ton, and Oxford — who transferred their right to Pope's publisher. 
Pope would be sheltered behind these responsible persons, and an 
aggrieved person might be slower to attack persons of high posi- 
tion and property. By yet another device Pope applied for an 
injunction in Chancery to suppress a piratical London edition ; but 
ensured the failure of his application by not supplying the neces- 
sary proofs of property. This trick, repeated, as we shall see, on 
another occasion, was intended either to shirk responsibility or to 
increase the notoriety of the book. A further mystification was 
equally characteristic. To the Dunciad in its enlarged form is 
prefixed a letter, really written by Pope himself, but praising his 
morality and genius, and justifying his satire in terms which would 
have been absurd in Pope's own mouth. He therefore induced a 
Major Cleland, a retired officer of some position, to put his name 
to the letter, which it is possible that he may have partly written. 
The device was transparent, and only brought ridicule upon its 
author. Finally, Pope published an account of the publication in 
the name of Savage, known by Johnson's biography, who seems to 
have been a humble ally of the great man — at once a convenient 
source of information and a tool for carrying on this underground 
warfare. Pope afterwards incorporated this statement— which 
was meant to prove, by some palpable falsehoods, that the dunces 
had not been the aggressors — in his own notes, without Savage's 
name. This labyrinth of unworthy devices was more or less visi- 
ble to Pope's antagonists. It might in some degree be excusable 
as a huge practical joke, absurdly elaborate for the purpose, but it 
led Pope into some slippery ways, where no such excuse is avail- 
able. 

Pope, says Johnson, contemplated his victory over the dunces 
with great exultation. Through his mouth-piece, Savage, he de- 
scribed the scene on the day of publication ; how a crowd of 
authors besieged the shop and threatened him with violence ; how 
the booksellers and hawkers struggled with small success for 
copies ; how the dunces formed clubs to devise measures of retal- 
iation ; how one wrote to ministers to denounce Pope as a traitor, 
and another brought an image in clay to execute him in effigy; 
and how successive editions, genuine and spurious, followed each 
other, distinguished by an owl or an ass on the frontispiece, and 
provoking infinite controversy amongst rival vendors. It is un- 
pleasant to have ugly names hurled at one by the first writer of the 
day ; but the abuse was for the most part too general to be libel- 
lous. Nor would there be any great interest now in exactly dis- 
tributing the blame between Pope and his enemies. A word or 
two may be said of one of the most conspicuous quarrels. 

Aaron Hill was a fussy and ambitious person, full of literary 
and other schemes ; devising a plan for extracting oil from beech 



POPE. 85 

nuts, and writing a Pindaric ode on the occasion ; felling forests 
in the Highlands to provide timber for the navy ; and, as might be 
inferred, spending instead of making a fortune. He was a stage- 
manager, translated Voltaire's Aferope, wrote words for Handel's 
first composition in England, wrote unsuccessful plays, a quantity 
of unreadable poetry, and corresponded with most of the literary 
celebrities. Pope put his initials, A. H., under the head of " Fly- 
ing Fishes," in the Bathos, as authors who now and then rise upon 
their fins and fly, but soon drop again to the profound. In the 
Dunciad he reappeared amongst the divers. 

" Then * * tried, but hardly snatch'd from sight 
Instant buoys up, and rises into light : 
He bears no token of the sable streams, 
And mounts far off amongst the swans of Thames." 

A note applied the lines to Hill, with whom he had had a former 
misunderstanding. Hill replied to these assaults by a ponderous 
satire in verse upon " tuneful Alexis ; " it had, however, some tol- 
erable lines at the opening, imitated from Pope's own verses upon 
Addison, and attributing to him the same jealousy of merit in 
others. Hill soon afterwards wrote a civil note to Pope, complain- 
ing of the passage in the Dnnciad. Pope might have relied upon 
the really satisfactory answer that the lines were, on the whole, 
complimentary ; indeed, more complimentary than true. But with 
his natural propensity for lying, he resorted to his old devices. In 
answer to this and a subsequent letter, in which Hill retorted with 
unanswerable force, Pope went on to declare that he was not the 
author of the notes, that the extracts had been chosen at random, 
that he would "use his influence with the editors of the Dunciad 
to get the notes altered ; " and, finally, by an ingenious evasion, 
pointed out that the blank in the Dunciad required to be filled up 
by a dissyllable. This, in the form of the lines as quoted above, is 
quite true, but in the first edition of the Dunciad the first verse 
had been 

" H tried the next, but hardly snatch'd from sight." 

Hill did not detect this specimen of what Pope somewhere calls 
"pretty genteel equivocation." He was reconciled to Pope, and 
taught the poor poet by experience that his friendship was worse 
than his enmity. He wrote him letters of criticism ; he forced 
poor Pope to negotiate for him with managers and to bring dis- 
tinguished friends to the performances of his dreary plays ; nay, to 
read through, or to say that he had read through, one of them in 
manuscript four times, and make corrections mixed with elaborate 
eulogy. No doubt Pope came to regard a letter from Hill with 
terror, though Hill compared him to Horace and Juvenal, and 
hoped that he would live till the virtues which his spirit would 
propagate became as general as the esteem of his genius. In 
short, Hill, who was a florid flatterer, is so complimentary that we 



86 POPE. 

are not surprised to find him telling Richardson, after Pope's 
death, that the poet's popularity was due to a certain "bla 
swell of management." " But," he concludes, '• rest his memory 
in peace ! It will very rarely be disturbed by that time he himself 
is ashes." 

The war raged for some time. Dennis, Smedley, Moore- 
Smythe, Welsted, and others, retorted by various pamphlets, the 
names of which were published by Pope in an appendix to future 
editions of the Duncidd, by way of proving that his own blows had 
told. Lady Mary was credited, perhaps unjustly, with an abusive 
performance called a ''Pop upon Pope," relating how Pope had 
been soundly whipped by a couple of his victims — of course a pure 
fiction. Some such vengeance, however, was seriously threat- 
ened. As Pope was dining one day at Lord Bathurst's, the ser- 
vant brought in the agreeable message that a young man was wait- 
ing for Mr. Pope in the lane outside, .and that the young man's 
name was Dennis. He was the son of the critic, and prepared to 
avenge his father's wrongs ; but Bathurst persuaded him to retire, 
without the glory of thrashing a cripple. Reports of such possi- 
bilities were circulated, and Pope thought it prudent to walk out 
with his big Danish clog Bounce and a pair of pistols. Spence 
tried to persuade the little man not to go out alone, but Pope de- 
clared that he would not go a step out of his way for such villains, 
and that it was better to die than to live in fear of them. He con- 
tinued, indeed, to give fresh provocation. A weekly paper called 
the Gtub-street Journal, was started in January, 1730, and con- 
tinued to appear till the end of 1737. It included a continuous 
series of epigrams and abuse, in the Scriblerian vein, and aimed 
against the heroes of the Dunciad, amongst whom poor James 
Moore-Smythe seems to have had the largest share of abuse. It 
was impossible, however, for Pope, busied as he was in literature 
and society, and constantly out of health, to be the efficient editor 
of such a performance ; but though he denied having any concern 
in it, it is equally out of the question that any one really uncon- 
nected with Pope should have taken up the huge burden of his 
quarrels in this fashion. Though he concealed, and on occasions 
denied his connexion, he no doubt inspired the editors and con- 
tributed articles to its pages, especially during its early years. It 
is a singular fact— or, rather, it would have been singular, had 
Pope been a man of less abnormal character — that he should have 
devoted so much energy to this paltry subterranean warfare 
against the objects of his complex antipathies. Pope was so 
anxious for concealment, that he kept his secret even from his 
friendly legal adviser, Fortescue ; and Fortescue innocently re- 
quested Pope to get up evidence to support a charge of libel 
against his own organ. The evidence which Pope collected — in 
defence of a quack-doctor, Ward — was not, as we may suppose, 
very valuable. Two volumes of the Grub-s,treet Journal were 
printed in 1737, and a fragment or two was admitted' by Pope into 
his works. It is said, in the preface to the collected pieces, that 



POPE. 87 

the journal was killed by the growing popularity of the Gentleman's 
Magazine, which is accused of living by plunder. But in truth the 
reader will infer that, if the selection includes the best pieces, the 
journal may well have died from congenial weakness. 

The Dunciad was yet to go through a transformation, and to 
lead to a new quarrel ;' and though this happened at a much later 
period, it will be most convenient to complete the story here. Pope 
had formed an alliance with Warburton, of which I shall presently 
have to speak; and it was under Warburton's influence that he re- 
solved to add a fourth book to the Dunciad. This supplement 
seems to have been really made up of fragments provided for 
another scheme. The Essay on Jfau^-to be presently mentioned 
—was to be followed by a kind of poetical essay upon the nature 
and limits of the human understanding, and a satire upon the mis- 
application of the serious faculties.* It was a design manifestly 
beyond the author's powers ; and even the fragment which is 
turned into the fourth book of the Dunciad takes him plainly out 
of his depth. He was no philosopher, and therefore an incom- 
petent assailant of the abuses of philosophy. The fourth book 
consists chiefly of ridicule upon pedagogues who teach words in- 
stead of things ; upon the unlucky " virtuosos " who care for old 
medals, plants, and butterflies — pursuits which afforded an unceas- 
ing supply of ridicule to the essayists of the time ; a denunciation 
of the corruption of modern youth, who learn nothing but new 
forms of vice in the grand tour; and a fresh assault upon Toland, 
Tindal, and other freethinkers of the day. There was some pas- 
sages marked by Pope's usual dexterity, but the whole is awkwardly 
constructed, and has no very intelligible connexion with the first 
part. It was highly admired at the time, and. amongst others, by 
Gray. He specially praises a passage which has often been quoted 
as representing Pope's highest achievement in his art. At the con- 
clusion the goddess Dulness yawns, and a blight falls upon art, 
science, and philosophy. I quote the lines, which Pope himself 
could not repeat without emotion, and which have received the 
highest eulogies from Johnson and Thackeray. 

" In vain, in vain — the all-composing Hour 
Resistless falls ; the Muse obeys the Power — 
She comes ! she comes ! the sable throne behold 
Of night primeval and of chaos old ! 
Before her Fancy's gilded clouds decay, 
And all its varying rainbows die away. 
Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, 
The meteor drops, and in a flash expires, 
As one by one, at dread Medea's strain, 
The sickening stars fade off the ethereal plain; 
As Argus' eyes by Hermes' wand oppress'd 
Closed one by one to everlasting rest ; 
Thus at her felt approach, and secret might, 
Art after art goes out, and all is night. 

* See Pope to Swift. March 25, 1736. 



88 pope. 

See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled, 

Mountains of casuistry heaped o'er her head ! 

Philosophy, that lean'd on heaven before, 

Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. 

Physic of Metaphysic begs defence, 

And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense! 

See Mystery to Mathematics fly ! 

In vain ! They gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. 

Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires, 

And unawares Morality expires. 

Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine; 

Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine ! 

Lo ! thy dread empire, Chaos ! is restored ; 

Light dies before thy uncreating word ; 

Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall, 

And universal darkness buries all." 

The most conspicuous figure in this new Dunciad (published 
March, 1742), is Bentley — taken as the representative of a pedant 
rampant. Bentley is, I think, the only man of real genius of whom 
Pope has spoken in terms implying gross misappreciation. With 
all his faults, Pope was a really fine judge of literature, and has 
made fewer blunders th an such men as Addison, Gray, and John- 
son, infinitely superior to him in generosity of feeling towards the 
living. He could even appreciate Bentley, and had written, in his 
copy of Bentley's Milton, " Pulchre, bene, recte," against some of 
the happier emendations in the great critic's most unsuccessful per- 
formance. The assault in the Dunciad 'is not the less unsparing 
and ignorantly contemptuous ot scholarship. The explanation is 
easy. Bentley, who had spoken contemptuously of Pope's Homer, 
said of Pope, " the portentous cub never forgives." But this was 
not all. Bentley had provoked enemies by his intense pugnacity 
almost as freely as Pope by his sneaking malice. Swift and Atter- 
bury, objects of Pope's friendly admiration, had been his antagon- 
ists, and Pope would naturally accept their view of his merits. And, 
moreover, Pope's great ally of this period had a dislike of his own 
to Bentley. Bentley had said of Warburton that he was a man of 
monstrous appetite and bad digestion. The remark hit Warburton's 
most obvious weakness. Warburton, with his imperfect scholar- 
ship, and vast masses of badly assimilated learning, was jealous of 
the reputation of the thoroughly trained and accurate critic. It 
was the dislike of a charlatan for the excellence which he endeav- 
oured to simulate. Bolingbroke, it may be added, was equally con- 
temptuous in his language about men of learning, and for much the 
same reason. He depreciated what he could not rival. Pope, 
always under the influence of some stronger companions, naturally 
adopted their shallow prejudices, and recklessly abused a writer 
who should have been recognised as amongst the most effective 
combatants against dulness. 

Bentley died a few months after the publication of the Dunciad. 
But Pope found a living antagonist, who succeeded in giving him 
pain enough to gratify the vilified dunces. This was Colley Cib- 
ber — most lively and mercurial of actors — author of some success 



POPE. 89 

ful plays, with too little stuff in them for permanence, and of an 
Apology for his own Life, which is still exceedingly amusing as 
well as useful tor the history of the stage. He was now approach- 
ing seventy, though he was to survive Pope for thirteen years, and 
as good-tempered a specimen of the lively, if not too particular, old 
man of the world as could well have been found. Pope owed him 
a grudge. Cibber, in playing the Rehearsal, had introduced some 
ridicule of the unlucky Three Hours after Marriage. Pope, he 
says, came behind the scenes foaming and choking with fury, and 
forbidding Cibber ever to repeat the insult. Cibber laughed at 
him and said that he would repeat it as long as the Rehearsal was 
performed, and kept his word. Pope took his revenge by many 
incidental hits at Cibber, and Cibber made a good-humoured 
reference to this abuse in the Apology. Hereupon Pope, in the 
new Dunciad, describes him as reclining on the lap of the goddess, 
and added various personalities in the notes. Cibber straightway 
published a letter to Pope, the more cutting because still in perfect 
good-humour, and told the story about the original quarrel. He 
added an irritating anecdote in order to provoke the poet still 
further. It describes Pope as introduced by Cibber and Lord 
Warwick to very bad company. The story was one which could 
only be told by a graceless old representative of the old school of 
comedy, but it hit its mark. The two Richardsons once found 
Pope reading one of Cibber's pamphlets. He said, " These things 
are my diversion : " but they saw his features writhing with an- 
guish, and young Richardson, as they went home, observed to his 
father that he hoped to be preserved from such diversions as Pope 
had enjoyed. The poet resolved to avenge himself, and he did it 
to the lasting injury of his poem. He dethroned Theobald, who, 
as a plodding antiquarian, was an excellent exponent of dulness, 
and installed Cibber in his place, who might be a representative of 
folly, but was as little of a dullard as Pope himself. The conse- 
quent alterations makes the hero of the poem a thoroughly incon- 
gruous figure, and greatly injure the general design. The poem 
appeared in this form in 1743. with a pondrous prefatory discourse 
by Ricardus Aristarchus, contributed by the faithful Warburton, and 
illustrating his ponderous vein of the elephantine pleasantry. 

Pope was nearing the grave, and many of his victims had gone 
before him. It was a melancholy employment for an invalid, break- 
ing down visibly month by month ; and one might fancy that the 
eminent Christian divine might have used his influence to better 
purpose than in fanning the dying flame, and adding the strokes of 
his bludgeon to the keen stabs of Pope's stiletto. In the fourteen 
years which elapsed since the first Dunciad, Pope had found less 
unworthy employment for his pen ; but, before dealing with the 
works produced at this time, which include some of his highest 
achievements. I must tell a story which is in some ways a natural 
supplement to the war with the dunces. In describing Pope's en- 
tangled history, it seems most convenient to follow each separate 
line of discharge of his multifarious energy, rather than to adhere 
to chronological order. 



go POPE. 



CHAPTER VI.* 

CORRESPO NDENCE. 

I have now to describe one of the most singular series of trans- 
actions to be found in the annals of literature. A complete know- 
ledge of their various details has only been obtained by recent re- 
searches. I cannot follow within my limits of space all the ins and 
outs of the complicated labyrinth of more than diplomatic trickery 
which those researches have revealed, though I hope to render the 
main facts sufficiently intelligible. It is painful to track the strange 
deceptions of a man of genius as a detective unravels the misdeeds 
of an accomplished swindler ; but without telling the story at some 
length, it is impossible to give a faithful exhibition of Pope's char- 
acter. 

In the year 1726, when Pope had just finished his labours upon 
Homer, Curll published the juvenile letters to Cromwell. There 
was no mystery about this transaction. Curll was the chief of all 
piratical booksellers, and versed in every dirty trick of the Grub- 
street trade. He is described in that mad book. Amory's JoJin 
Bisncle, as tall, thin, ungainly, white-faced, with light grey goggle 
eyes, purblind, splay-footed and " baker-kneed." According to the 
same queer authority, whxi professes to have lodged in Curll's 
house, he was drunk as often as he could drink for nothing, and 
intimate in every London haunt of vice. " His translators lay three 
in a bed at the Pewter Platter Inn in Holborn," and helped to com- 
pile his indecent, piratical, and catchpenny productions. He had 
lost his ears for some obscene publication; but Amory adds, "to 
his glory," that he died "as great a penitent as ever expired.'' 
He had one strong point as an antagonist. Having no character to 
lose, he could reveal his own practices without a blush, if the revel 
ation injured others. 

Pope had already come into collision with this awkward antag- 
onist. In 1 716 Curll threatened to publish the Town Eclogues^ 
burlesques upon Ambrose Philips, written by Lady Mary, with the 
help of Pope and perhaps Gay- Pope, with Lintot, had a meeting 
with Curll in the hopes of suppressing a publication calculated to 
injure his friends. The party had some wine, and Curll, on going 
home, was very sick. He declared — and there are reasons for be- 
lieving his story — that Pope had given him an emetic by way of 

* The evidence by which the statements in this chapter are supported is fully set forth 
in Mr. El win's edition of Pope's Works, Vol I., and in the notes to the Orrery Correspon- 
dence in the third volume of letters. 



POPE. 



91 



coarse practical joke. Pope, at any rate, took advantage of the ac- 
cident to write a couple of squibs upon Curll, recording the book- 
seller's ravings under the action of the drug, as he had described 
the ravings of Dennis provoked by Cato. Curll had his revenge 
afterwards : but meanwhile he wanted no extraneous motive to in- 
duce him to publish the Cromwell letters. Cromwell had given 
the letters to a mistress, who fell into distress and told them to 
Curll for ten guineas. 

The correspondence was received with some favour, and sug- 
gested to Pope a new mode of gratifying his vanity. An occasion 
soon offered itself. Theobald, the hero of the Dunciad, edited in 
1728 the posthumous works of Wycherley. Pope extracted from 
this circumstance a far-fetched excuse for publishing the Wycher- 
ley correspondence. He said that it was due to Wycherley's 
memory to prove, by the publication of their corresponcence, 
that the posthumous publication of the works was opposed to their 
author's wishes. As a matter of fact, the letters have no ten- 
dency to prove anything of the kind, or, rather, they support the 
opposite theory ; but poor Pope was always a hand-to-mouth liar, 
and took the first pretext that offered, without caring for consist- 
ency or confirmation. His next step was to write to his friend, 
Lord Oxford, son of Queen Anne's minister. Oxford was a weak, 
good-natured man. By cultivating a variety of expensive tastes, 
without the knowledge to guide them, he managed to run through 
a splendid fortune and die in embarrassment. His famous library 
was one of his special hobbies. Pope now applied to him to allow 
the Wycherley letters to be disposited in the library, and further 
requested that the fact of their being in this quasi-public place 
might be mentioned in the preface as a guarantee of their authen- 
ticity. Oxford consented, and Pope quietly took a further step 
without authority, He told Oxford that he had decided to make 
his publishers say that copies of the letters had been obtained from 
Lord Oxford. He told the same story to Swift, speaking of the 
" connivance " of his noble friend, and adding that, though he did not 
himself " much approve " of the publication, he was not ashamed 
of it. He thus ingeniously intimated that the correspondence, 
which he had himself carefully prepared and sent to press, had been 
printed without his consent by the officious zeal of Oxford and the 
booksellers. 

The book (which was called the second volume of Wycherley's 
works) has entirely disappeared. It was advertised at the time, 
but not a single copy is known to exist. One cause of this disap- 
pearance now appears to be that it had no sale at first, and that 
Pope preserved the sheets for use in a more elaborate device which 
followed. Oxford probably objected to the misuse of his name, as 
the fiction which made him responsible was afterwards dropped. 
Pope found, or thought that he had found, on the next occasion, a 
more convenient cat's-paw. Curll, it could not be doubted, would 
snatch at any chance of publishing more correspondence ; and, as 
Pope was anxious to have his letters stolen and Curll was ready 



92 



POPE. 



to steal, the one thing necessary was a convenient go-between, who 
could be disowned or altogether concealed. Pope went systemati- 
cally to work. He began by writing to his friends, begging them 
to return his letters. After Curll's piracy, he declared, he could 
not feel himself safe, and should be unhappy till he had the letters 
in his own custody. Letters were sent in, though in some cases 
with reluctance ; and Caryll, in particular, who had the largest num- 
ber, privately tookc opies before returning them (a measure which 
ultimately secured the detection of many of Pope's manoeuvres). 
This, however, was unknown to Pope. He had the letters copied 
out ; after (according to his own stating) burning three-fourths of 
them, and (as we are now aware) carefully editing the remainder, 
he had the copy deposited in Lord Oxford's library. His object 
was, as he said, partly to have documents ready in case of the 
revival of scandals, and partly to preserve the memory of his friend- 
ships. The next point was to get these letters stolen. For this 
purpose he created a man of straw, a mysterious "P. T.," who 
could be personated on occasion by some of the underlings em- 
ployed in the underground transactions connected with the Dun- 
dad and the Grub-street Journal. P. T. began by writing to 
Curll in 1733, and offering to sell him a collection of Pope's 
letters. The negotiation went off for a time, because P. T. in- 
sisted upon Curll's first committing himself by publishing an ad- 
vertisement, declaring himself to be already in possession of the 
originals. Curll was too wary to commit himself to such a state- 
ment, which would have made him responsible for the theft ; or, 
perhaps, have justified Pope in publishing the originals in self- 
defence. The matter slept till March, 1735, when Curll wrote to 
Pope proposing a cessation of hostilities, and as a proof of good- 
will sending him the old P. T. advertisement. This step fell in 
so happily with Pope's designs that it has been suggested that 
Curll was prompted in some indirect manner by one of Pope's 
agents. Pope, at any rate, turned it to account. He at once 
published an insulting advertisement. Curll (he said in this man- 
ifesto) had pretended to have had the offer from P. T. of a huge 
collection of Pope's letters ; Pope knew nothing of P. T., believed 
the letters to be forgeries, and would take no more trouble in the 
matter. Whilst Curll was presumably smarting under this sum- 
mary slap on the face, the insidious P. T. stepped in once more. 
P. T. now said that he was in possession of the printed sheets of 
the correspondence, and the negotiation went on swimmingly. 
Curll put out the required advertisement; a "short, squat " man, 
in a clergyman's gown and with barrister's bands, calling himself 
Sniythe, came to his house at night as P. T.'s agent, and showed 
him some printed sheets and original letters; the bargain was- 
struck ; 240 copies of the book were delivered, and it was pub- 
lished on May 12. 

So far the plot had succeeded. Pope had printed his own corre- 
spondence, and had tricked Curll into publishing the book piratically, 
whilst the public was quite prepared to believe that Curll had per- 



POPE. 93 

formed a new piratical feat. Pope, however, was now bound to 
shriek as loudly as he could at the outrage under which he was 
suffering. He should have been prepared also to answer an obvious 
question. Every one would naturally inquire how Curll had pro- 
cured the letters, which by Pope's own account were safely depos- 
ited in Lord Oxford's library. Without, as it would seem, properly 
weio-hino- the difficulty of meeting this demand, Pope called out 
loudly for vengeance. When the Dunciad appeared, he had applied 
(as 1 have said) for an injunction in Chancery, and had at the same 
time secured the failure of his application. The same device was 
tried in a still more imposing fashion. The House of Lords had 
recently decided that it was a breach of privilege to publish a peer's 
letters without his consent. Pope availed himself of this rule to 
fire the most sounding of blank shots across the path of the piratical 
Curll. He was as anxious to allow the publication, as to demand 
its suppression in the most emphatic manner. Accordingly he got 
his friend, Lord Hay, to call the attention of the peers to Curll's 
advertisement, which was so worded as to imply that there were in 
the book letters from, as well as to, peers. Pope himself attended 
the house " to stimulate the resentment of hi.; friends. " The book 
was at once seized by a messenger, and Curll ordered to attend the 
next day. But on examination it immediately turned out that it 
contained no letters from peers, and the whole farce would have 
ended at once but for a further trick. Lord Hay said that a certain 
letter to Jervas contained a reflection upon Lord Burlington. Now 
the letter was found in a first batch of fifty copies sent to Curll, and 
which had been sold before the appearance of the Lords' messen- 
ger. But the letter had been suppressed in a second batch of 190 
copies, which the messenger was just in time to seize. Pope had 
of course foreseen and prepared this result. 

The whole proceeding in the Lords was thus rendered abortive. 
The books were restored to Curll, and the sale continued. But 
the device meanwhile had recoiled upon its author ; the very danger 
against which he should have guarded himself had now occurred. 
How were the letters procured ? Not till Curll was coming up for 
examination does it seem to have occurred to Pope that the Lords 
would inevitably ask the awkward question. He then saw that 
Curll's answer might lead to a discovery. He wrote a letter to 
Curll (in Smythe's name) intended to meet the difficulty. He en- 
treated Curl] to take the whole of the responsibility of procuring the 
letters upon himself, and by way of inducement held out hopes of an- 
other volume of correspondence. In a second note he tried to throw 
Curll off the scent of another significant little fact. The sheets 
(as I have mentioned) were partly made up from the volume of 
Wychefley correspondence ; * this would give a clue to further 
inquiries ; P. T. therefore allowed Smythe to say (ostensibly to 
show his confidence in Curll) that he (P. T.) had been employed 
in getting up the former volume, and had had some additional 

* This is proved by a note referring to " the present edition of the posthumous works 
11 l .I: . Wyeheriey," which, by an oversight, was allowed to remain in the Curll volume. 



94 Forx. 

sheets struck off for himself to which he had added letters subse- 
quently obtained. The letter was a signal blunder. Curll saw at 
once that it put the game in his hands. He was not going to tell 
lies to please the slippery P. T., or the short squat lawyer-clergy- 
man. He had begun to see through the whole manoeuvre. He 
went straight off to the Lords' committee, told the whole story, and 
produced as a voucher the letters in which P. T. begged for 
secrecy. CurlPs word was good for little by itself, but his story 
hung ^together, and the letter confirmed it. And if, as now 
seemed clear, Curll was speaking the truth, the question re- 
mained, who was P. T., and how did he get the letters? The 
answer, as Pope must have felt, was only too clear. 

But Curll now took the offensive. In reply to another letter 
from Smythe, complaining of his evidence, he went roundly to 
work ; he said that he should at once publis'h all the correspon- 
dence. P. T. had prudently asked for the return of his letters; 
but Curll had kept copies, and was prepared to swear to their 
fidelity. Accordingly he soon advertised what was called the Initial 
Correspondence. Pope was now caught in his own trap. He had 
tried to avert suspicion by publicly offering a reward to Smythe 
and P. T., if they would " discover the whole affair." The letters, 
as he admitted, must have been procured either from his own library 
or from Lord Oxford's. The correspondence to be published by 
Curll would help to identify the mysterious appropriators, and 
whatever excuses could be made ought now to be forthcoming. 
Pope adopted a singular plan. It was announced that the clergy 
man concerned with P. T. and Curll had " discovered the whole 
transaction." A narrative was forthwith published to anticipate 
Curll and to clear up the mystery. If good for anything, it should 
have given, or helped to give, the key to the great puzzle — the 
mode of obtaining the letters. There was nothing else for Smythe 
or P. T. to discover." Readers must have been strangely disap- 
pointed on finding not a single word to throw light upon this sub- 
ject, and merely a long account of the negotiations between Curll 
and P. T. The narrative might serve to distract attention from 
the main point, which it clearly did nothing to elucidate. But 
Curll now stated his own case. He reprinted the narrative with 
some pungent notes ; he gave in full some letters omitted by P. T., 
and he added a story which was most unpleasantly significant. 
P.T. had spoken, as 1 have said, of his connexion with the Wycher- 
ley volume. The object of this statement was to get rid of an 
awkward bit of evidence. But Curll now announced, on the au- 
thority of Gilliver, the publisher of the volume, that Pope had him- 
self bought up the remaining sheets. The inference was clear. 
Unless the story could be contradicted, and it never was, Pope was 
himself the thief. The sheets common to the two volumes had 
been traced to his possession. Nor was there a word in the P. T. 
narrative to diminish the force of these presumptions. Indeed it 
was curiously inconsistent, for it vaguely accused Curll of stealing 
♦■.he letters himself, whilst in the same breath it told how he had 



pope. 95 

bought them from P. T. In fact, P. T. was beginning to resolve 
himself into thin air, like the phantom in the Dunciad. As he 
vanished, it required no great acuteness to distinguish behind him 
the features of his ingenious creator. It was already believed at 
the time that the whole affair was an elaborate contrivance of 
Pope's, and subsequent revelations have demonstrated the truth of 
the hypothesis. Even the go-between Smythe was identified as 
one James Worsdale, a painter, actor, and author, of the Bohemian 
variety. 

Though Curll had fairly won the game, and Pope's intrigue was 
even at the time sufficiently exposed, it seems to have given less 
scandal than might have been expected. Probably it was suspected 
only in literary circles, and perhaps it might be thought that, 
silly as was the elaborate device, the disreputable Curll was fair 
game for his natural enemy. Indeed, such is the irony of fate, 
Pope won credit with simple people. The effect of the publica- 
tion, as Johnson tells us, was to fill the nation with praises of the 
admirable moral qualities revealed in Pope's letters. Amongst the 
admirers was Ralph Allen, who had made a large fortune by farm- 
ing the cross-posts. His princely benevolence and sterling worth 
were universally admitted, and have been immortalized by the best 
contemporary judge of character. Re was the original of Field- 
ing's Allworthy. Like that excellent person, he seems to have had 
the common weakness of good men in taking others too easily at 
their own valuation. Pope imposed upon him, just as Blifil im- 
posed upon his representative. He was so much pleased with the 
correspondence, that he sought Pope's acquaintance, and offered 
to publish a genuine edition at his own expense. An authoritative 
edition appeared, accordingly, in 1737. Pope preferred to publish 
by subscription, which does not seem to have filled very rapidly, 
though the work ultimately made a fair profit. Pope's underhand 
manoeuvres were abundantly illustrated in the history of this new 
edition. It is impossible to give the details; but I may briefly 
state that he was responsible for a nominally spurious edition which 
appeared directly after, and was simply a reproduction of Curll' s 
publication. Although he complained of the garbling and inter- 
polations supposed to have been due to the wicked Curll or the 
phantom P. T., and although he omitted in his avowed edition cer- 
tain letters which had given offence, he nevertheless substantially 
reproduced in it Curll's version of the letters. As this differs from 
the originals which have been preserved, Pope thus gave an addi- 
tional proof that he was really responsible for Curll's supposed 
garbling. This evidence was adduced with conclusive force by 
Bowles in a later controversy, and would be enough by itself to 
convict Pope of the imputed deception. Finally, it may be added 
that Pope's delay in producing his own edition is explained by the 
fact that it contained many falsifications of his correspondence 
with Caryll, and that he delayed the acknowledgment of the genuine 
character of the letters until Caryll's death removed the danger of 
detection. 



96 POPE. 

The whole of this elaborate machinery was devised in order 
that Pope might avoid the ridicule of publishing his own corre- 
spondence. There had been few examples of a similar publication 
of private letters ; and Pope's volume, according to Johnson, did 
not attract very much attention. This is, perhaps, hardly consis- 
tent with Johnson's other assertion that it filled the nation with 
praises-of his virtue. In any case it stimulated his appetite for 
such praises, and led him to a fresh intrigue, more successful, and 
also more disgraceful. The device originally adopted in publish- 
ing the Dunciad apparently suggested part of the new plot. The 
letters hitherto published did not include the most interesting 
correspondence in which Pope had been engaged. He had been 
in the habit of writing to Swift since their first acquaintance, and 
Bolingbroke had occasionally joined him. These letters, which 
connected Pope with two of his most famous contemporaries, 
would be far more interesting than the letters to Cromwell or Wy- 
cherley, or even than the letters addressed to Addison and Steele, 
which were mere stilted fabrications. How could they be got 
before the world, and in such a way as to conceal his own com- 
plicity ? 

Pope had told Swift (in 1730) that he had kept some of the 
letters in a volume for his own secret satisfaction ; and Swift had 
preserved all Pope's letters along with those of other distinguished 
men. Here was an attractive booty for such parties as the unprin- 
cipled Curll ! In 1735 Curll had committed his wicked piracy, and 
Pope pressed Swift to return his letters, in order to " secure him 
against that rascal printer." The entreaties were often renewed, 
but Swift for some reason turned his deaf ear to the suggestion. 
He promised, indeed (September 3, 1735), that the letters should 
be burnt — a most effectual security against republication, but one 
not at all to Pope's taste. Pope then admitted that, having been 
forced to publish some of his other letters, he should like to make 
use of some of those to Swift, as none would be more honorable to 
him. Nay, he says, he meant to erect such a minute monument of 
their friendship as would put to shame all ancient memorials of the 
same kind.* This avowal of his intention to publish did not con- 
ciliate Swift. Curll next published, in 1736, a couple of letters to 
Swift, and Pope took advantage of this publication [perhaps he 
had indirectly supplied Curll with copies] to urge upon Swift the 
insecurity of the letters in his keeping. Swift ignored the request, 
and his letters about this time began to show that his memory was 
failing, and his intellect growing weak. 

Pope now applied to their common friend, Lord Orrery. Or- 
rery was the dull member of a family eminent for its talents. His 
father had left a valuable library to Christ Church, ostensibly be- 
cause the son was not capable of profiting by books, though a less 
creditable reason has been assigned.* The son, eager to wipe off 

* These expressions come from two letters of Pope to Lord Orrery in March, 173 7, and 
may not accurately reproduce his statements to Swift ; but they probably represent ap- 
proximately what he had said. 

t It is said that the son objected to allow his wife to meet his father's mistress. 



pope. 97 

the imputation, specially affected the society of wits and was elab- 
orately polite both to Swift and Pope. Pope now got Orrery to 
intercede with Swift, urging that the letters were no longer safe in 
the custody of a failing old man. Orrery succeeded, and brought 
the letters in a sealed packet to Pope in the summer of 1737. 
Swift, it must be added, had an impression that there was a gap of 
six years in the collection ; he became confused as to what had or 
had not been sent, and had a vague belief in a " great collection" 
of letters '• placed in some very safe hand." * Pope, being thus in 
possession of the whole correspondence, proceeded to perform a 
manoeuvre resembling those already employed in the case of the 
Ditttciad aind of the P. T. letters. He printed the correspondence 
clandestinely. He then sent the printed volume to Swift, accom- 
panied by an anonymous letter. This letter purported to come 
from some persons who, from admiration of Swift's private and 
public virtues, had resolved to preserve letters so creditable to him, 
and had accordingly put them in type. They suggested that the 
volume would be suppressed if it fell into the hands of Bolingbroke 
and Pope (a most audacious suggestion !), and intimated that Swift 
should himself publish it. No other copy, they said, was in exist- 
ence. Poor Swift fell at once into the trap. He ought, of course, 
to have consulted Pope or Bolingbroke, and would probablv have 
done so had his mind been sound. Seeing, however, a volume al- 
ready printed, he might naturally suppose that, in spite of the 
anonymous assurance, it was already too late to stop the publication. 
At any rate, he at once sent it to his publisher, Faulkner, and de- 
sired him to bring it out at once. Swift was in that most melan- 
choly state in which a man's friends perceive him to be incompetent 
to manage his affairs, and are yet not able to use actual restraint. 
Mrs. Whiteway, the sensible and affectionate cousin who took care 
of him at this time, did her best to protest against the publication, 
but in vain. Swift insisted. So far Pope's device was successful. 
The printed letters had been placed in the hands of his bookseller 
by Swift himself, and publication was apparently secured. But 
Pope had still the same problem as in the previous case. Though 
he had talked of erecting a monument to Swift and himself, he was 
anxious that the monument should apparently be erected by some 
one else. His vanity could only be satisfied by the appearance 
that the publication was forced upon him. He had, therefore, to 
dissociate himself from the publication by some protest at once 
emphatic and ineffectual ; and, consequently, to explain the means 
by which the letters had been surreptitiously obtained. 

The first aim was unexpectedly difficult. Faulkner turned out 
to be an honest bookseller. Instead of sharing Curll's rapacity, he 
consented, at Mrs. Whiteway's request, to wait until Pope had an 
opportunity of expressing his wishes. Pope, if he consented, could 
no longer complain ; if he dissented, Faulkner would suppress the 
letters. In this dilemma, Pope first wrote to Faulkner to refuse per- 

* See Elwin's edition of Pope's Correspondence, iii., 399, note. 



98 pope. 

mission, and at the same time took care that his letter should be 
delayed for a month. He hoped that Faulkner would lose patience, 
and publish. But Faulkner, with provoking civility, stopped the 
press as soon as he heard of Pope's objection. Pope hereupon 
discovered that the letters were certain to be published, as they were 
already printed, and doubtless by some mysterious " confederacy 
of people " in London. All he could wish was to revise them be- 
fore appearance. Meanwhile he begged Lord Orrery to inspect 
the book, and say what he thought of it. " Guess in what a situa- 
tion I must be," exclaimed this sincere and modest person, " not 
to be able to see what ail the world is to read as mine ! " Orrery 
was quite as provoking as Faulkner. He got the book from Faulk- 
ner, read it, and instead of begging Pope not to deprive the world 
of so delightful a treat, said, with dull integrity, that he thought the 
collection " unworthy to be published." — Orrery, however, was inno- 
cent enough to accept Pope's suggestion, that letters which had once 
got into such hands would certainly come out sooner or later. After 
some more haggling, Pope ultimately decided to take this ground. 
He would, he said, have nothing to do with the letters ; they would 
come out in any case ; their appearance would please the Dean, and 
he (Pope) would stand clear of all responsibility. He tried, indeed, 
to get Faulkner to prefix a statement tending to fix the whole trans- 
action upon Swift ; but the bookseller declined, and the letters ulti- 
mately came out with a simple statement that they were a reprint. 

Pope had thus virtually sanctioned the publication. He was 
not the less emphatic in complaining of it to his friends. To Orrery, 
who knew the facts, he represented the printed copy sent to Swift 
as a proof that the letters were beyond his power ; and to others, 
such as his friend Allen, he kept silent as to this copy altogether; 
and gave them to understand that poor Swift — or some member of 
Swift's family — was the prime mover in the business. His mystifi- 
cation had, as before, driven him into perplexities upon which he 
had never calculated. In fact, it was still more difficult here than in 
the previous case to account for the original misappropriation of the 
letters. Who could the thief have been ? Orrery, as we have 
seen, had himself taken a packet of letters to Pope, which would 
be of course the letters from Pope to Swift. The packet being 
sealed, Orrery did not know the contents, and Pope asserted that 
he had burnt it almost as soon as received. It was, however, true 
that Swift had been in the habit of showing the originals to his 
friends, and some might possibly have been stolen or copied by 
designing people. But this would not account for the publication 
of Swift's letters to Pope, which had never been out of Pope's 
possession. As he had certainly been in possession of the other let- 
ters, it was easiest, even for himself, to suppose that some of his 
own servants were the guilty persons ; his own honour being, 
of course, beyond question. 

To meet these difficulties, Pope made great use of some stray 
phrases dropped by Swift in the decline of his memory, and setup 
a story of his having himself returned some letters to Swift, of which 



POPE. 99 

important fact all traces had disappeared. One characteristic device 

will be a sufficient specimen. Swift wrote that a great collection of 

" my letters tojw*" is somewhere "in a safe hand." He meant, 

of course, " a collection oiyour letters to me " — the only letters of 

which he could know anything. Observing the slip of the pen, he 

altered the phrase by writing the correct words above the line. It 

now stood — "your , ". ■ .me _ . ., 

1 letters to Pope laid great stress upon 

my you." 

this, interpreting it to mean that the "great collection" included 
letters from each correspondent to the other — the fact being that 
Swift had only the letters from Pope to himself. The omission 
of an erasure (whether by Swift or Pope) caused the whole mean- 
ing to be altered. As the great difficulty was to explain the publi- 
cation of Swift's letters to Pope, this change supplied a very impor- 
tant link in the evidence. It implied that Swift had been at some 
time in possession of the letters in question, and had trusted them 
to some one supposed to be safe. The whole paragraph, mean- 
while, appears, from the unimpeachable evidence of Mrs. White- 
way, to have involved one of the illusions of memory, for which he 
(Swift) apologises in the letter from which this is extracted, By 
insisting upon this passage, and upon certain other letters dexter- 
ously confounded with those published, Pope succeeded in raising 
dust enough to blind Lord Orrery's not very piercing intelligence. 
The inference which he desired to suggest was that some persons 
in Swift's family had obtained possession of the letters. Mrs. 
Whitevvay, indeed, met the suggestion so clearly, and gave such 
good reasons for assigning Twickenham as the probable centre of 
the plot, that she must have suspected the truth. Pope did not 
venture to assail her publicly, though he continued to talk of treach- 
ery or evil influence. 

The accuse innocent people of a crime which you know yourself 
to have committed is bad enough. It is, perhaps, even baser to 
lay a trap for a friend, and reproach him for falling into it. Swift 
had denied the publication of the letters, and Pope would have had 
some grounds of complaint had he not been aware of the failure of 
Swift's mind, and had he not been himself the tempter. His position, 
however, forced him to blame his friend. It was a necessary part 
of his case to impute at least a breach of confidence to his victim. 
He therefore took the attitude — it must, one hopes, have cost him 
a blush — of one who is seriously aggrieved, but who is generously 
anxious to shield a friend in consideration of his known infirmity. 
He is forced, in sorrow, to admit that Swift has erred, but he will 
not allow himself to be annoyed. The most humiliating words ever 
written by a man not utterly vile, must have been those which Pope 
set down in a letter to Nugent, after giving his own version of the 
case: " I think I can make no reflections upon this strange incident 
but what are truly melancholy, and humble the pride of human na- 
ture. That the greatest of geniuses, though prudence may have 
been the companion of wit (which is very rare) for their whole lives 
past, may have nothing left them but their vanity. No decay of 



IOO POPE. 

body is half so miserable." The most audacious hypocrite of fic- 
tion pales beside this. Pope, condescending to the meanest com- 
plication of lies to justify a paltry vanity, taking advantage of his 
old friend's dotage to trick him into complicity, then giving a false 
account of his error, and finally moralising, with all the airs of 
philosophic charity, and taking credit for his generosity, is alto- 
gether a picture to set fiction at defiance. 

I must add a remark not so edifying. Pope went down to his 
grave soon afterwards, without exciting suspicion except among two 
or three people intimately concerned. A whisper of doubt was 
soon hushed. Even the biographers who were on the track of 
his former deception did not suspect this similar iniquity. The last 
of them, Mr. Carruthers, writing in 1857, observes upon the pain 
given to Pope by the treachery of -Swift — a treachery of course 
palliated by Swift's failure of mind. At last Mr. Dilke discovered 
the truth, which had been placed beyond doubt by the still later 
discovery of the letters to Orrery. The moral is, apparently, that it 
is better to cheat a respectable man than a rogue ; for the respec- 
table tacitly form a society for mutual support of character, whilst 
the open rogue will be only too glad to show that you are even such 
an one as himself. 

It was not probable that letters thus published should be printed 
with scrupulous accuracy. Pope, indeed, can scarcely have at- 
tempted to conceal the fact that they had been a good deal altered. 
And so long as the letters were regarded merely as literary compo- 
sitions, the practice was at least pardonable. Cut Pope went 
further: and the full extent of his audacious changes was not seen 
until Mr. Dilke became possessed of the Caryll correspondence. 
On comparing the copies preserved by Caryll with th'e letters pub- 
lished by Pope, it became evident that Pope had regarded these 
letters as so much raw material, which he might carve into shape at 
pleasure, and with such alterations of date and address as might be 
convenient, to the confusion of all biographers and editors ignorant 
of his peculiar method of editing. The details of these very dis- 
graceful falsifications have been fully described by Mr. Elwin,* 
but I turn gladly from this lamentable narrative to say something 
of the literary value of the correspondence. Every critic has 
made the obvious remark that Pope's letters are artificial and self- 
conscious. Pope claimed the opposite merit. " It is many years 
ago," he says to Swift in 1729, "since I wrote as a wit." He 
smiles to think " how Curll would be bit were our epistles to fall 
into his hands, and how gloriously they would fall short of everv 
ingenious reader's anticipations." Warburton adds in a note tha't 
Pope used to "value himself upon this particular." It is indeed 
true that Pope had dropped the boyish affectation of his letters to 
Wycherley and Cromwell. But such a statement in the mouth of 
a man who plotted to secure Curll's publication of his letters, with 
devices elaborate enough to make the reputation of an unscrupulous 

* Pope's Works, vol. i. p. exxi. 



POPE. . ioi 

diplomatist, is of course only one more example of the superlative 
degree of affectation, the affectation of being unaffected, We 
should be, indeed, disappointed were we to expect in Pope's letters 
what we find in the best specimens of the art: the charm which be- 
longs to a simple outpouring of friendly feeling in private inter- 
course ; the sweet playfulness of Cowper, or the grave humour of 
Gray, or even the sparkle and brilliance of Walpole's admirable 
letters. Though Walpole had an eye to posterity, and has his own 
mode of affectation, he is for the moment intent on amusing, and 
is free from the most anoying blemish in Pope's writing, the reso- 
lution to appear always in full dress, and to mount as often as pos- 
sible upon the stilts of moral self-approbation. All this is obvious 
to the hasty reader ; and yet I must confess my own conviction 
that there is scarcely a more interesting volume in the language 
than that which contains the correspondence of Swift, Bolingbroke, 
and Pope. To enjoy it, indeed, we must not expect to be in sym- 
pathy with the writers. Rather we must adopt the mental attitude 
of spectators of a scene of high comedy — the comedy which is 
dashed with satire and has a tragical side to it. We are behind 
the scenes in Vanity Fair, and listening to the talk of three of its 
most famous performers, doubting whether they most deceive each 
other, or the public or themselves. The secret is an open one foi 
us, now that the illusion which perplexed contemporaries has worn 
itself threadbare. 

The most impressive letters are doubtless those of Swift — the 
stern, sad humourist, frowning upon the world which has rejected 
him, and covering his wrath with an affectation, not of fine senti- 
ment, but of misanthropy. A soured man prefers to turn his worst 
side outwards. There are phrases in his letters which brand them- 
selves upon the memory like those of no other man ; and we are 
softened into pity as the strong mind is seen gradually sinking into 
decay. The two other sharers in the colloquy are in effective con- 
trast. We see through Bolingbroke's magnificent self-deceit ; the 
flowing manners of the statesman who, though the game is lost, is 
longing for a favourable turn of the card, but still effects to solace 
himself with philosophy, and wraps himself in dignified reflections 
upon the blessings of retirement, contrast with Swift's downright 
avowal of indignant scorn for himself and mankind. And yet we 
have a sense of the man's amazing cleverness, and regret that he 
has no chance of trying one more fall with his antagonists in the 
open arena. Pope's affectation is perhaps the most transparent 
and the most gratuitous. His career had been pre-eminently suc- 
cessful ; his talents had found their natural outlet; and he had only 
to be what, he apparently persuaded himself that he was, to be 
happy in spite of illness. He is constantly flourishing his admir- 
able moral sense in our faces, dilating upon his simplicity, modesty, 
fidelity to his friends, indifference to the charms of fame, till we are 
almost convinced that he has imposed upon himself. By some 
strange piece of legerdemain he must surely have succeeded in re- 
garding even his deliberate artifices, with the astonishing; masses 



102 



POPE. 



of hypocritical falsehoods which they entailed, as in some way legit, 
imate weapons against a world full of piratical Curlls and deep laid 
plots. And, indeed, with all his delinquencies, and with all his affec- 
tations, there are moments in which we forget to preserve the correct 
tone of moral indignation. Every now and then genuine feeling seems 
to come to the surface. For a time the superincumbent masses of 
hypocrisy vanish. In speaking of his mother or his pursuits he for- 
gets to wear his mask. He feels a genuine enthusiasm about his 
friends ; he believes with almost pathetic earnestness in the amaz- 
ing talents of Bolingbroke, and the patriotic devotion of the younger 
men who are rising up to overthrow the corruptions of Walpole ; he 
takes the affectation of his friends as seriously as a simple-minded 
man who has never. fairly realised the possibility of deliberate hy- 
pocrisy ; and he utters sentiments about human life and its objects 
which, if a little tinted with commonplace, have yet a certain ring 
of sincerity, and, as we may believe, were really sincere for the 
time. At such moments we seem to see the man behind the veil — 
the really loveable nature which could know as well as simulate feel- 
ing. And, indeed, it is this quality which makes Pope endurable. 
He was — if we must speak bluntly — a liar and a hypocrite ; but the 
foundation of his character was not selfish or grovelling. On the 
contrary, no man could be more warmly affectionate or more exquis- 
itely sensitive to many noble emotions. The misfortune was that 
his constitutional infirmities, acted upon by unfavorable conditions, 
developed his craving for applause and his fear of censure, till cer- 
tain morbid tendencies in him assumed proportions which, com- 
pared to the same weaknesses in ordinary mankind, are as the 
growth of plants in a tropical forest to their stunted representatives 
in the North. 



POPE 



103 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE ESSAY ON MAN. 

It is a relief to turn from this miserable record of Pope's petty 
or malicious deceptions to the history of his legitimate career. I 
go back to the period when he was still in full power. Having 
finished the Dunciad, he was soon employed on a more ambitious 
task. Pope resembled one of the inferior bodies of the solar system, 
whose orbit is dependent upon that of some more massive planet ; 
and having been a satellite of Swift, he was now swept into the train 
of the more imposing Bolingbroke. He had been originally intro- 
duced to Bolingbroke by Swift, but had probably seen little of the 
brilliant minister who,in the first years of their acquaintance, had too 
many occupations to give much time to the rising poet. Boling- 
broke, however, had been suffering a long eclipse, whilst Pope was 
gathering fresh splendor. In his exile, Bolingbroke, though never 
really weaned from political ambition, had amused himself with su- 
perficial philosophical studies. In political life it was his special 
glory to extemporise statesmanship without sacrificing pleasure. 
He could be at once the most reckless of rakes and the leading 
spirit in the Cabinet or the House of Commons. He seems to have 
thought that philosophical eminence was obtainable in the same off- 
hand fashion, and that a brilliant style would justify a man in laying 
down the law to metaphysicians as well as to diplftmatists and poli- 
ticians. His philosophical writings are equally superficial and ar- 
rogant, though they show here and there the practised debater's 
power of making a good point against his antagonist without really 
grasping the real problems at issue. 

Bolingbroke received a pardon in 1723, and returned to Eng- 
land, crossing Atterbury, who had just been convicted of treason- 
able practices. In 1725 Bolingbroke settled at Dawley, near Ux- 
bridge, and for the next ten years he was alternately amusing him- 
self in playing the retired philosopher, and endeavouring, with more 
serious purpose, to animate the opposition to Walpole. Pope, who 
was his frequent guest, sympathised with his schemes, and was com- 
pletely dazzled by his eminence. He spoke of him with bated 
breath, as being almost superior to humanity. " It looks," said Pope 
once, " as if that great man had been placed here by mistake. 
When the comet appeared a month or two ago," he added, " I some- 



io 4 P0PE - 

times fancied that it might be come to carry him home, as a coach 
comes to one's door for other visitors." Of all the graceful compli- 
ments in Pope's poetry, none are more ardent or more obviously 
sincere than those addressed to this " guide, philosopher, and 
friend." He delighted to bask in the sunshine of the great man's 
presence. Writing to Swift in 1728, he (Pope) says that he is 
holding the pen " for my Lord Bolingbroke," who is reading your 
letter between two hay-cocks, with his attention occasionally dis- 
tracted by a threatening shower. Bolingbroke is acting the temper- 
ate recluse, having nothing for dinner but mutton-broth, beans and 
bacon, and a barn-door fowl. Whilst his lordship is running after a 
cart, Pope snatches a moment to tell how the day before this 
noble farmer had engaged a painter for 200/. to give the correct 
agricultural air to his country hall by ornamenting it with trophies 
of spades, rakes, and prongs. Pope saw that the zeal for retirement 
was not free from affectation, but he sat at the teacher's feet with 
profound belief in the value of the lessons which flowed from his 
lips. 

The connexion was to bear remarkable fruit. Under the direc- 
tion of Bolingbroke, Pope resolved to compose a great philosophical 
poem. " Does Pope talk to you," says Bolingbroke to Swift in 
1731, "of the noble work which, at my instigation, he has begun 
in such a manner that he must be convinced by this time I judged 
better of his talents than he did ? " And Bolingbroke proceeds to 
describe the Essay on Man, of which it seems that three (out of 
four) epistles were now finished. The first of these epistles appeared 
in 1733. Pope, being apparently nervous on his first appearance 
as a philosopher, withheld his name. The other parts followed in 
the course of 1733 and 1734, and the authorship was soon avowed 
The Essay on Man is Pope's most ambitious performance, and the 
one by which he was best known beyond his own country. It has 
been frequently translated ; it was imitated both in France and 
Germany, and provoked a controversy, not like others in Pope's 
history of the purely personal kind. 

The Essay bn Man professes to be a theodicy. Pope, with an 
echo of the Miltonic phrase, proposes to 

" Vindicate the ways of God to man." 

He is thus attempting the greatest task to which poet or philoso- 
pher can devote himself — the exhibition of an organic and harmoni- 
ous view of the universe. In a time when men's minds are domi- 
nated by a definiate rel-igious creed, the poet may hope to achieve 
success in such an undertaking without departing from his legitimate 
method. His vision pierces to the world hidden from our senses, 
and realises in the transitory present a scene in the slow devel- 
opment of a divine drama. To make us share his vision is to give 
his justification- of Providence. When Milton told the story of the 
war in heaven and the fall of man, he gave implicitly his theory of 
the true relations of man to his Creator, but the abstract doctrine 
was clothed in the flesh and blood of a concrete mythology. 



POPE. 105 

In Pope's day the traditional belief had lost its hold upon 
men's minds too completely to be used for imaginative purposes. 
The story of Adam and Eve would itself require to be justified or 
to be rationalised into thin allegory. Nothing was left possessed 
of any vitality but a bare skeleton of abstract theology dependent 
upon argument instead of tradition, and which might use or might 
dispense with a Christian phraseology. Its deity was not a histor- 
ical personage, but the name of a metaphysical conception. For a 
revelation was substituted a demonstration. To vindicate Provi- 
dence meant no longer to stimulate imagination by a pure and sub- 
lime rendering of accepted truths, but to solve certain philosophical 
problems, and especially the grand difficulty of reconciling the exist 
.ence of evil with divine omnipotence and benevolence. 

Pope might conceivably have written a really great poem on 
these terms, though deprived of the concrete imagery of a Dante 
or a Milton. If he had fairly grasped some definite conception of 
the universe, whether pantheistic or atheistic, optimist or pessimist, 
proclaiming a solution of the mystery, or declaring all solutions to 
be impossible, he might have given forcible expression to the cor- 
responding emotions. He might have uttered the melancholy 
resignation and the confident hope incited in different minds by a 
contemplation of the mysterious world. He might again con- 
ceivably have written an interesting work, though it would hardly 
have been a poem — if he had versified the arguments by which a 
coherent theory might be supported. Unluckily he was quite un- 
qualified for either undertaking, and, at the same time, he more or 
less aimed at both. Anything like sustained reasoning was beyond 
his reach. Pope felt and thought by shocks and electric flashes. 
He could only obtain a continuous effect when working clearly upon 
lines already provided for him, or simulate one by fitting together 
fragments struck out at intervals. The defect was aggravated or 
caused by the physical infirmities which put sustained intellectual 
labor out of the question. The laborious and patient meditation 
which brings a converging series of arguments to bear upon a sin- 
gle point was to him as impossible as the power of devising an 
elaborate strategical combination to a dashing Prince Rupert. The 
reasonings in the Essay are confused, contradictory, and often 
childish. He was equally far from having assimilated any definite 
system of thought. Brought up as a Catholic, he had gradually 
swung into vague deistic belief. But he had never studied any 
philosophy or theology whatever, and he accepts in perfect uncon- 
sciousness fragments of the most heterogeneous systems. 

Swift, in verses from which I have already quoted, describes 
his method of composition, which is characteristic of Pope's habits 
of work. 

" Now backs of letters, though design'd 
For those who more will need 'em, 
Are fill'd with hints and interlined, 
Himself can scarcely read 'em- 



io6 POPE. 

" Each atom by some other struck 
All turns and motions tries; 
Till in a lump together stuck, 
Behold a poem rise ! " 

It was strange enough that any poem should arise by such 
means ; but it would have been miraculous if a poem so constructed 
had been at once a demonstration and an exposition of a harmo- 
nious philosophical system. The confession which he made to 
Warburton will be a sufficient indication of his qualifications as a 
student. He says (in 1739) that ne never in his life read a line of 
Leibnitz, nor knew, till he found it in a confutation of his Essay, 
that there was such a term as pre-established harmony. That is 
almost as if a modern reconciler of faith and science were to say 
that he had never read a line of Mr. Darwin, or heard of such a 
phrase as the struggle for existence. It was to pronounce himself 
absolutely disqualified to speak as a philosopher. 

How, then, could Pope obtain even an appearance of success ? 
The problem should puzzle no -one at the present day. Every 
smart essayist knows how to settle the most abstruse metaphysical 
puzzles after studies limited to the pages of a monthly magazine ; 
and Pope was much in the state of mind of such extemporising 
philosophers. He had dipped into the books which everybody 
read ; Locke's Essay, and Shaftesbury's Characteristics, and Wol- 
laston's Religion of Nature, and Clarke on the slttributes, and 
Archbishop King on the Origin, of Evil, had probably amused his 
spare moments. They were all. we may suppose, in Bolingbroke's 
library ; and if that passing shower commemorated in Pope's letter 
drove them back to the house, Bolingbroke might discourse from 
the page which happened to be open, and Pope would try to ver- 
sify it on the back of an envelope.* Nor must we forget, like 
some of his commentators, that after all Pope was an exceedingly 
clever man. His rapidly perceptive mind was fully qualified to im- 
bibe the crude versions of philosophic theories which float upon 
the surface of ordinary talk, and are not always so inferior to their 
prototypes in philosophic qualities as philosophers would have us 
believe. He could by snatches seize with admirable quickness the 
general spirit of a doctrine, though unable to sustain himself at a 
high intellectual level for any length of time. He was ready with 
abundance of poetical illustrations, not, perhaps, very closely 
adapted to the logic, but capable of being elaborated into effective 
passages ; and, finally, Pope had always a certain number of more 
or less appropriate commonplaces or renderings into verse of some 
passages which had struck him in Pascal or Rochefoucauld, or 
Bacon, all of them favourite authors, and which could be wrought 
into the structure at a slight cost of coherence. By such means 
he could put together a poem, which was certainly not an organic 
whole, but which might contain many striking sayings and passages 
of great rhetorical effect. 

* " No letter with an envelope could give him more delight," says Swift. 



POPE. 107 

The logical framework was, we may guess, supplied mainly by 
Bolingbroke. Bathurst told Warton that Bolingbroke had given 
Pope the essay in prose, and that Pope had only turned it into 
verse ; and Mallet — a friend of both — is said to have seen the very 
manuscript from which Pope worked. Johnson, on hearing this 
from Boswell, remarked that it must be an overstatement. Pope 
might have had from Bolingbroke the "philosophical stamina" of 
the essay, but' he must, at least, have contributed the "poetical 
imagery," and have had more independent power than the story 
implied. It is, indeed, impossible accurately to fix the relations 
of the teacher and his disciple. Pope acknowledged in the strongest 
possible terms his dependence upon Bolingbroke, and Bolingbroke 
claims with equal distinctness the position of instigator and inspirer. 
His more elaborate philosophical works are in the form of letters 
to Pope, and profess to be a redaction of the conversations which 
they had had together. These were not written till after the 
Essay on Man; but a series of fragments appear to represent what 
he actually set clown for Pope's guidance. They are professedly 
addressed to Pope. "I write," he says (fragment 65), "to you 
and for you, and you would think yourself little obliged to me if I 
took the pains of explaining in prose what you would not think it 
..ecessary to explain in verse " — that is, the free-will puzzle. The 
manuscripts seen by Mallet may probably have been a commonplace 
book in which Bolingbroke had set clown some of these fragments, 
by way of instructing Pope, and preparing for his own more sys- 
tematic work. No reader of the fragments can, I think, doubt as 
to the immediate source of Pope's inspiration. Most of the ideas 
expressed were the common property of many contemporary 
writers, but Pope accepts the particular modification presented by 
Bolingbroke.* Pope's manipulation of these materials causes much 
of the Essay on Man to resemble (as Mr. Pattison puts it) an ex- 
quisite mosaic work. A detailed examination of his mode of 
transmutation would" be a curious study in the technical secrets of 
literary execution. A specimen or two will sufficiently indicate 
the general character of Pope's method of constructing his 
essay. 

The forty-third fragment of Bolingbroke is virtually a prose 
version of much of Pope's poetry. A few phrases will exhibit the 
relation : — 

" Through worlds unnumber'd, though the God be known 
'Tis ours to trace Him only in our own. 
He who through vast immensity can pierce, 
See worlds on worlds compose one universe, 
Observe how system into system runs, 
What other planets circle other suns, 
What varied being peoples every star, 
May tell why Heaven has made us what we are. 

* It would be out of place to discuss this in detail , but I mav say that Pope s crude 
theory of the state of nature, his psychology as to reason and instinct, and self-love, and his 
doctrine of the scale of beings, all seem to have the specific Bolingbroke stamp. 



108 POPE. 

But of this frame, the bearings and the ties, 

The strong connexions, nice dependencies, 

Gradations just, has thy pervading soul 

Looked through, or can a part contain the whole ?" 

" The universe," I quote only a few phrases from Bolingbroke, 
" is an immense aggregate of systems. Every one of these, if ive 
may judge by our own, contains several ; and every one of these 
again, if ive may judqe by our own, is made up of a multitude of 
different modes of being, animated and inanimated, thinking and 
unthinking . . . but all concurring in one common system .... Just so 
it is with respect to the various systems and systems of systems that 
compose the universe. As distant as they are, and as different as we 
may imagine them to be, they are all tied together by relations and 
connexions, gradations, and dependencies." The verbal coinci- 
dence is here as marked as the coincidence in argument. AVarton re- 
fers to an eloquent passage in Shaftesbury, which contains a similar 
thought : but one can hardly doubt that Bolingbroke was in this 
case the immediate source. A quaint passage a little farther on, in 
which Pope represents man as complaining because he has not " the 
strength of bulls or the fur of bears," may be traced with equal 
plausibility to Shaftesbury or to Sir Thomas Browne ; but I have 
not noticed it in Bolingbroke. 

One more passage will be sufficient. Pope asks whether we 
are to demand the suspension of laws of nature whenever they might 
produce a mischievous result ? Is Etna to cease an eruption to 
spare a sage, or should " new motions be impressed upon sea and 
air " for the advantage of blameless Bethel ? 

" When the loose mountain trembles from on high, 
Shall gravitation cease, if you go by? 
Or some old temple, nodding to its fall, 
For Chartres' head reserve the haniyinsr wall ? 

Chartres is Pope's typical villain. This is a terse version, with 
concrete cases, of Bolingbroke's vaguer generalities. "The laws 
of gravitation," he says, " must sometimes be suspended (if special 
Providence be admitted), and sometimes their effect must be pre- 
cipitated. The tottering edifice must be kept miraculously from fall- 
ing, whilst innocent men lived in it or passed under it, and the fall 
of it must be as miraculously determined to crush the guilty inhabi- 
tant or passenger." Here again, we have the alternative of Wol- 
laston, who uses a similar illustration, and in one phrase comes 
nearer to Pope. He speaks of " new motions being impressed 
upon the atmosphere." We may suppose that the two friends had 
been dipping into Wollaston together. Elsewhere Pope seems to 
have stolen for himself. In the beginning of the second epistle, 
Pope, in describing man as " the glory, jest, and riddle of the 
world," is simply versifying Pascal; and a little farther on, when 
he speaks of reason as the wind and passion as the gale on life's 
vast ocean, he is adapting his comparison from Locke's treatise on 
government. 



POPE IO g 

If all such cases were adduced, we should have nearly picked 
the argumentative part of the essay to pieces ; but Bolingbroke 
supplies throughout the most characteristic element. The frag- 
ments cohere by external cement, not by an internal unity of 
thought ; and Pope too often descends to the level of mere satire, 
or indulges in a quaint conceit or palpable sophistry. Yet it would 
be very unjust to ignore, the high qualities which are to be found 
in this incongruous whole. The style is often admirable. When 
Pope is at his best every word tells. His precision and firmness 
of touch enables him to get the greatest possible meaning into a 
narrow compass. He uses only one epithet but it is the right one, 
and never boggles and patches, or, in his own phrase, " blunders 
round about a meaning." Warton gives, as a specimen of this 
power, the lines : — 

"But errs not nature from this gracious end 
From burning suns when livid deaths descend. 
When earthquakes swallow or when tempests sweep 
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep ? " 

' And Mr. Pattison reinforces the criticism by quoting Voltaire's 
feeble imitation : — 

" Quand des vents du midi les funestes haleines 
De semence de mort ont inonde nos plaines, 
Direz-vous vue jamais le ciel en son courroux 
Ne laissa la sante se'journer parmi nous ? " 

It is true that, in the effort to be compressed, Pope has here 
and there cut to the quick and suppressed essential parts of speech, 
till the lines can only be construed by our independent knowledge 
of their meaning. The famous line — 

" Man never is but always to be blest,' 

<s an example of defective construction, though his language is 
often tortured by more elliptical phrases. * This power of charg- 
ing lines with great fulness of meaning enables Pope to soar for 
brief periods into genuine and impressive poetry. Whatever his 
philosophical weakness and his moral obliquity, he is often moved 
by genuine emotion. He has a vein of generous sympathy for 
human sufferings and of righteous indignation against bigots, and 
if lie only half understands his own optimism, that " whatever is is 
right," the vision, rather poetical than philosophical, of a harmo- 

* Perhaps the most curious example, too long for quotation, is a passage near the end 
of the last epistle, in which he sums up his moral system by a series of predicates for which 
it is impossible to find any subject. One couplet runs — 

" Never elated whilst one man's depress'd, 
Never dejected whilst another's blest." 

It is impressive, but it is quite impossible to discover by the rules of grammatical construc- 
tion who is to be never elated and depressed. 



no POPE, 

nious universe lifts him at times into a region loftier than that of 
frigid and pedantic platitude. The most popular passages were 
certain purple patches, not arising very spontaneously or with much 
relevance, but also showing something more than the practised 
rhetorician. The " poor Indian " in one of the most highly polished 
paragraphs — 

" Who thinks, admitted to that eqiial sky, 
His faithful dog shall bear him company." 

intrudes rather at the expense of logic, and is a decidedly conven- 
tional person. But this passage has a certain glow of fine human- 
it v, and is touched with real pathos. A further passage or two 
may sufficiently indicate his higher qualities. In the end of the 
third epistle Pope is discussing the origin of government and the 
state of nature, and discussing them in such a way as to show con- 
clusively that he does not in the least understand the theories in 
question or their application. His state of Nature is a sham re- 
production of the golden age of poets, made to do duty in a scientific 
speculation. A flimsy hypothesis learnt from Bolingbroke is not 
improved when overlaid with Pope's conventional ornamentation. 
The imaginary history proceeds to relate the growth of superstition, 
which destroys the primeval innocence ; but why or when does not 
very clearly appear ; yet though the general theory is incoherent, he 
catches a dis'tinctview of one aspect of the question, and expresses 
a tolerably trite view of the question with singular terseness. Who, 
he asks, — 

" First taught souls enslaved and realms undone, 
The enormous faith of many made for one ? " 

He replied, — 

" Force first made conquest, and that conquest law 
Till Superstition taught the tyrant awe, 
Then shared the tyranny, then lent it aid, 
And gods of conquerors, slaves of subjects made , 
She, 'mid the lightning's blaze and thunder's sound, 
When rock'dthe mountains and when groan'd the ground, 
She taught the weak to trust, the proud to pray 
To Power unseen and mightier far than they ; 
She from the rending earth and bursting skies 
Saw gods descend and fiends infernal rise ; 
There fix'd the dreadful, there the blest ahodes; 
Fear made her devils, and weak hope her gods; 
Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust. 
Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust , 
Such as the souls of cowards might conceive, 
And, framed like tyrants, tyrants would believe." 

If the test of poetry were the power of expressing a theory 
more closely and pointedly than prose, such writing would take a 
very high place. Some popular philosophers would make a sound- 
ing chapter out of those sixteen lines. 



POPE. 1 1 1 

The Essay on Man brought Pope into difficulties. The central 
thesis, "whatever' is is right," might be understood in various 
senses, and in some sense it would be accepted by every theist. 
But, in Bolingbroke's teaching, it received a heterodox application, 
and in Pope's imperfect version of Bolingbroke the taint was not 
removed. The logical outcome of the rationalistic theory of the 
time was some form of pantheism, and the tendency is still more 
marked in a poetical statement, where it was difficult to state the 
refined distinctions by which the conclusion is averted. When 
theology is regarded as demonstrable by reason, the need of a rev- 
elation ceases to be obvious. The optimistic view, which sees the 
proof of divine order in the vast harmony of the whole visible 
world, throws into the background the darker side of the universe 
reflected in the theological doctrines of human corruption, and the 
consequent need of a future judgment in separation of good from 
evil. I need not inquire whether any optimistic theory is really 
tenable ; but the popular version of the creed involved the attempt 
to ignore the evils under which all creation groans, and produced 
in different minds the powerful retort of Butler's Analogy, and the 
biting sarcasm of Voltaire's Candide. Pope, accepting the doctrine 
without any perception of these difficulties, unintentionally fell into 
sheer pantheism. He was not yielding to the logical instinct 
which carries out a theory to its legitimate development ; but obey- 
ing the imaginative impulse which cannot stop to listen to the 
usual qualifications and safeguards of the orthodox reasoner. The 
best passages in the essay are those in which he is frankly panthe- 
istic, and is swept, like Shaftesbury, into enthusiastic assertion of 
the universal harmony of things. 

"All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body nature is, and God the soul ; 
That changed thro' all and yet in all the same, 
Great in the earth as in the ethereal frame ; 
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees ; 
Lives thro' all life, entends thro' all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent; 
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, 
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart ; 
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, 
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns ; 
To him, no high, no low, no great, no small, 
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all." 

In spite of some awkward phrases (hair and heart is a vile anti- 
thesis !), the passage is eloquent, but can hardly be called orthodox. 
And it was still worse when Pope undertook to show that even evil 
passions and vices were part of the harmony ; that " a Borgia and 
a Catiline " were as much a part of the divine order as a plague or 
an earthquake, and that self-love and lust were essential to social 
welfare. 



112 POPE. 

Pope's own religious position is characteristic and easily defina- 
ble. If it is not quite defensible on the strictest principles of plain 
speaking, it is also certain that we could not condemn him without 
condemning many of the best and most catholic-spirited of men. 
The dogmatic system in which he had presumably been educated 
had softened under the influence of the cultivated thought of the 
day. Pope, as the member of a persecuted sect, had learnt to 
share that righteous hatred of bigotry which is the honourable 
characteristic of his best contemporaries. He considered the per- 
secuting spirit of his own church to be its worst fault.* In the 
early Essay on Criticism he offended some of his own sect by a 
vigorous denunciation of the doctrine which promotes persecution 
by limiting salvation to a particular creed. His charitable convic- 
tion that a divine element is to be found in all creeds, from that of 
the " poor Indian " upwards, animates the highest passages in his 
works. But though he sympathises with a generous toleration, and 
the specific dogmas of his creed sat very loosely on his mind, he 
did not consider that an open secession was necessary or even 
honourable. He called himself a true Catholic, though rather as 
respectfully sympathising with the spirit of Fenelon than as holding 
to any dogmatic system. The most dignified letter that he ever 
wrote was in answer to a suggestion from Atterbury (1717), that 
he might change his religion upon the death of his father. Pope 
replies that his worldly interests would be promoted by such a 
step ; and, in fact, it cannot be doubted that Pope might have had 
a share in the good things then obtainable by successful writers, if 
he had qualified by taking the oaths. But he adds that such a 
change would hurt his mother's feelings, and that he was more cer- 
tain of his duty to promote her happiness than of any speculative 
tenet whatever. He was sure that he could mean as well in the re- 
ligion he now professed as in any other ; and that being so, he 
thought that a change even to an equally good religion could not 
be justified. A similar statement appears in a letter to Swift, in 
1729. " I am of the religion of Erasmus, a Catholic. So I live, so 
shall I die, and hope one. day to meet you, Bishop Atterbury, the 
younger Craggs, Dr. Garth, Dean Berkeley, and Mr. Hutchison in 
that place to which God of his infinite mercy brings us and every- 
body." To these Protestants he would doubtless have joined the 
freethinking Bolingbroke. At a later period he told Warburton, 
in less elevated language, that the change of his creed would bring 
him many enemies and do no good to any one. 

Pope could feel nobly and act honourably when his morbid 
vanity did not expose him to some temptation ; and I think that in 
this matter his attitude was in every way creditable. He showed, 
indeed, the prejudice entertained by many of the rationalist divines 
for the freethinkers who were a little more outspoken than himself. 
The deist whose creed was varnished with Christian phrases was 
often bitter against the deist who rejected the varnish ; and Pop© 

* Spence, p. 364. 



POPE. 113 

put Toland and Tindal into the Dundad^s scandalous assailants 
of all religion. From his point of -view it was as wicked to attack 
any creed as to regard any creed as exclusively true ; and certainly 
Pope was not disposed to join any party which was hated and 
maligned by the mass of the respectable world. For it must be 
remembered that, in spite of much that has been said to the con- 
trary, and in spite of the true tendency of much so-called orthodoxy, 
the profession of open dissent from Christian doctrine was then 
regarded with extreme disapproval. It might be a fashion as 
Butler and others declare, to talk infidelity in cultivated circles ; 
but a public promulgation of unbelief was condemned as criminal, 
and worthy only of the Grub-street faction. Pope, therefore, was 
terribly shocked when he found himself accused of heterodoxy. 
His poem was at once translated, and, we are told, spread rapialy 
in France, where Voltaire and many inferior writers were introdu- 
cing the contagion of English freethinking. A solid Swiss pastor 
and professor of philosophy, Jean Pierre Crousaz (i 663-1 750), un- 
dertook the task of refutation, and published an examination of 
Pope's philosophy in 1737 and 1738. A serious examination of 
this bundle of half-digested opinions was in itself absurd. Some 
years afterwards (1751) Pope came under a more powerful critic. 
The Berlin Academy of Sciences offered a prize for a similar essay, 
and Lessing published a short tract called Pope ein Metaphysiker ! 
If any one cares to see a demonstration that Pope did not under- 
stand the system of Leibnitz, and that the bubble blown by a great 
philosopher has more apparent cohesion than that of a half-read 
poet, he may find a sufficient statement of the case in Lessing. 
But Lessing sensibly protests from the start against the intrusion 
of such a work into serious discussion ; and that is the only ground 
which is worth taking in the matter. 

The most remarkable result of the Essay on Man, it may be 
parenthetically noticed, was its effect upon Voltaire. In 175 1 Vol- 
taire wrote a poem on Natural Law, which is a comparatively 
feeble application of Pope's principles. It is addressed to Fred- 
erick instead of Bolingbroke, and contains a warm eulogy of Pope's 
philosophy. But a few years later the earthquake at Lisbon sug- 
gested certain doubts to Voltaire as to the completeness of the op- 
timist theory ; and, in some of the most impressive. verses of the 
century, he issued an energetic protest against the platitudes ap- 
plied by Pope and his followers to deaden our sense of the miseries 
under which the race suffers. Verbally, indeed, Voltaire still makes 
his bow to the optimist theory, and the two poems appeared to- 
gether in 1756; but his noble outcry against the empty and com- 
placent deductions which it covers, led to his famous controversy 
with Rousseau. The history of this conflict falls beyond my sub- 
ject, and I must be content with this brief reference, which proves, 
amongst other things, the interest created by Pope's advocacy of 
the most characteristic doctrines of his time on the minds of the 
greatest leaders of the revolutionary movement. 

Meanwhile, however, Crousaz was translated into English, and 



IT 4 POPE. 

Pope was terribly alarmed. His " guide, philosopher, and friend " 
had returned to the Continent (in 1735), disgusted with his politi- 
cal failure, but was again in England from June, 1738, to May, 1739. 
We know not what comfort he may have given to his unlucky dis- 
ciple, but an unexpected champion suddenly arose. William War- 
burton (born 1698) was gradually pushing his way to success. He 
had been an attorney's clerk, and had not received' a university 
education ; but his multifarious reading was making him conspicu- 
ous, helped by great energy, and by a quality which gave some 
plausibility to the title bestowed on him by Mallet, " The most im- 
pudent man living." In his humble days he had been intimate 
with Pope's enemies, Concanen and Theobald, and had spoken 
scornfully of Pope, saying, amongst other things, that he "bor- 
rowed for want of genius," as Addison borrowed from modesty, 
and Milton from pride. In 1736 he had published his first impor- 
tant work, the Alliance betiveen Church and State; and in 1738 
followed the first instalment of his principal performance, the 
Divine Legation. During the following years he was the most 
conspicuous theologian of the day, dreaded and hated by his op- 
ponents, whom he unsparingly bullied, and dominating a small 
clique of abject admirers. He is said to have condemned the 
Essay on Man when it first appeared. He called it a collection of 
the worst passages of the worst authors, and declared that it taught 
rank atheism. The appearance of Crousaz's book suddenly in- 
duced him to make a complete change of front. Pie declared that 
Pope spoke " truth uniformly throughout," and complimented him 
on his strong and delicate reasoning. 

It is idle to seek motives fortius proceeding. Warburton loved 
paradoxes, and delighted in brandishing them in the most offen- 
sive terms. He enjoyed the exercise of his own ingenuity, and 
therefore his ponderous writings, though amusing by their audacity 
and width of reading, are absolutely valueless for their ostensible 
purpose. The exposition of Pope (the first part of which appeared 
in December, 1738) is one of his most tiresome performances ; nor 
need any human being at the present day study the painful wire- 
drawings and sophistries by which he tries to give logical cohesion 
and orthodox intention to the Essay on Man. 

If Warburton was simply practising his dialectical skill, the re- 
sult was a failure. But if he had an eye to certain lower ends, his 
success surpassed his expectations. Pope was in ecstasies. He fell 
upon Warburton's neck — or rather at his feet — and overwhelmed 
him with professions of gratitude. ' He invited him to Twickenham ; 
met him with compliments which astonished a by-stander, and wrote 
to him in terms of surprising humility. " You understand me," he 
exclaims in his first letter, li as well as I do myself ; but you ex- 
press me much better than I could express myself." For the rest 
of his life Pope adopted the same tone. He sheltered himself be- 
hind this burly defender, and could never praise him enough. He 
declared Mr. Warburton to be the greatest general critic he ever 
knew, and was glad to install him in the position of champion in 



POPE. 



"5 



ordinary. Warburton was consulted about new editions; anno- 
tated Pope's poems ; stood sponsor to the last Duiuiad, and was 
assured by his admiring friend that the comment would prolong 
the life of the poetry. Pope left all his copyrights to this friend, 
whilst his MSS. were given to Bolingbroke. 

When the University of Oxford proposed to confer an honorary 
degree upon Pope, he declined to receive the compliment, because 
the proposal to confer a smaller honour upon Warburton had been 
at the same time thrown out by the University. In fact, Pope 
looked up to Warburton with a reverence almost equal to that whicli 
he felt for Bolingbroke. If such admiration for such an idol was 
rather humiliating, we must remember that Pope was unable to 
detect the charlatan in the pretentious but really vigorous writer; 
and we may perhaps admit that there' is something pathetic in 
Pope's constant eagerness to be supported by some sturdier arm. 
We find the same tendency throughout his life. The weak and 
morbidly sensitive nature may be forgiven if its dependence leads 
to excessive veneration. 

Warburton derived advantages from the connexion, the pros- 
pect of which, we may hope, was not the motive of his first advo- 
cacy. To be recognized by the most eminent man of letters of the 
day was to receive a kind of certificate of excellence valuable to a 
man who had not the regular university hall-mark. More definite 
results followed. Pope introduced Warburton to Allen, and to 
Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield. Through Murray he was 
appointed preacher at Lincoln's Inn, and from Allen he derived 
greater benefits — the hand of his niece and heiress, and an intro- 
duction to Pitt, which gained for him the bishopric of Gloucester. 

Pope's allegiance to Bolingbroke was not weakened by this new 
alliance. He sought to bring the two together, when Bolingbroke 
again visited England in 1743. The only result was an angry ex- 
plosion, as, indeed, might have been foreseen ; for Bolingbroke 
was not likely to be well-disposed to the clever person whose dex- 
terous sleight-of-hand had transferred Pope to the orthodox camp ; 
nor was it natural that Warburton, the most combative and insult- 
ing of controversialists, should talk on friendly terms to one of his 
natural antagonists — an antagonist, moreover, who was not likely 
to have bishoprics in his gift. The quarrel, as we shall see, broke 
out fiercely over Pope's grave. 



m6 POPE. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

EPISTLES AND SATIRES. 

Pope had tried a considerable number of poetical experiments 
when the Dunciad appeared, but he had not yet discovered in 
what direction his talents couid be most efficiently exerted. By- 
standers are sometimes acuter in detecting a man's true forte than 
the performer himself. In 1722 Atterbury had seen Pope's lines 
upon Addison, and reported that no piece of his writing was ever 
so much sought after. "Since you now know," he added, "in 
what direction your strength lies, I hope you will not suffer that 
talent to be unemployed." Atterbury seems to have been rather 
fond of giving advice to Pope, and puts on a decidedly pedagogic 
air when writing to him. The present suggestion was more likely 
to fall on willing ears than another made shortly before their final 
separation. Atterbury then presented Pope with a Bible, and 
recommended him to study its pages. If Pope had taken to heart 
some of St. Paul's exhortations to Christian charity, he would 
scarcely have published his lines upon Addison, and English liter- 
ature would have lost some of its most brilliant pages. 

Satire of the kind represented by those lines was so obviously 
adapted to Pope's peculiar talent, that we rather wonder at his 
having taken to it seriously at a comparatively late period, and 
even then having drifted into it by accident rather than by deliber- 
ate adoption. He had aimed, as has been said, at being a philo- 
sophic and didactic poet. The Essay on Man formed part of a 
much larger plan, of which two or three fragmentary sketches are 
given by Spence.* Bolingbroke and Pope wrote to Swift in 
November, 1729, about a scheme then in course of execution. 
Bolingbroke declares that Pope is now exerting what was emi- 
nently and peculiarly his talents above all writers, living or dead, 
without excepting Horace ; whilst Pope explained that this was a 
"system of ethics in the Horatian way." The language seems to 
apply best to the poems afterwards called the Ethic Epistles, 
though at this time Pope, perhaps, had not a very clear plan in his 
head, and was working at different parts simultaneously. The 
Essay on Man, his most distinct scheme, was to form the open- 
ing book of his poem. Three others were to treat of knowl- 
edge and its limits, of government — ecclesiastical and civil — and 

* Spence, pp. 16 48, 137, 315. 



POPE. 



"7 



of morality. The last book itself involved an elaborate plan. 
There were to be three epistles about each cardinal virtue — one, 
for example, upon avarice ; another on the contrary extreme of 
prodigality ; and a third upon the judicious mean of a moderate 
use of riches. Pope told Spence that he had dropped the plan 
chiefly because his third book would have provoked every Church 
on the face of the earth, and he did not care for always being in 
boiling water. The scheme, however, was far too wide and too 
systematic for Pope's powers. His spasmodic energy enabled 
him only to fill up corners of the canvas, and from what he did, it 
is sufficiently evident that his classification would have been inco- 
herent and his philosophy unequal to the task. Part of his work 
was used for the fourth book of the Dunciad, and the remainder 
corresponds to what are now called the Ethic Epistles. These, 
as they now stand, include five poems. One of these has no real 
connection with the others. It is a poem addressed to Addison, 
" occasioned by his dialogue on medals," written (according to 
Pope) in 1715, and first published in TickelPs edition of Addison's 
works in 1721. The epistle to Burlington on taste was afterwards 
called the Use of Riches, and appended to another with the same 
title, thus filling a place in the ethical scheme, though devoted to 
a very subsidiary branch of the subject. It appeared in 1731. 
The epistle " of the use of riches " appeared in 1732 ; that of the 
knowledge and characters of men in 1733; and that of the char- 
acters of women in 1735. The last three are all that would seem 
to belong to the wider treatise contemplated ; but Pope composed 
so much in fragments that it is difficult to say what bits he might 
have originally intended for any given purpose. 

Another distraction seems to have done more than his fear of 
boiling water to arrest the progress of the elaborate plan. Boling- 
broke coming one day into his room, took up a Horace, and ob- 
served that the first satire of the second book would suit Pope's 
style. Pope translated it in a morning or two, and sent it to press 
almost rmmediately (1733). The poem had a brilliant success. 
It contained, amongst other things, the couplet which provoked 
his war with Lady Mary and Lord Hervey. This, again, led to his 
putting together the epistle to Arbuthnot, which includes the bit- 
ter attack upon Hervey, as part of a general apologia pro vita sua. 
It was afterwards called the Prologue to the Satires. Of his other 
imitations of Horace, one appeared in 1734 (the second satire of 
the second book), and four more (the first and sixth epistles of the 
first book and the first and second of the second book) in 1738. 
Finally, in 1737, he published two dialogues, first called " 1738," 
and afterwards The Epilogue to the Satires, which are in the same 
vein as the epistle to Arbuthnot. These epistles and imitations of 
Horace, with the so-called prologue and epilogue, took up the 
greatest part of Pope's energy during the years in which his intel- 
lect was at its best, and show his finest technical qualities. The 
Essay on Man was on hand during the early part of this period, 
the epistles and satires representing a ramification from the same 



n8 POPE. 

inquiry. But the essay shcrvvs the weak side of Pope, whilst his 
most lemarkable qualities are best represented by these subsidiary 
writings. Ths reason will be sufficiently apparent after a brief 
examination, which will also give occasion, for saying what still 
remains to be said in regard to Pope as a literary artist. 

The weakness already conspicuous in the Essay on Man mars 
the effect of the Ethic Epistles. His work tends to be rather an 
aggregation than an organic whole. He was (if I may borrow a 
phrase from the philologists) an agglutinative writer, and composed 
by sticking together independent fragments. His mode of com- 
position was natural to a mind incapable of sustained and continu- 
ous thought. In the epistles he professes to be working on a plan. 
The first expounds his favourite theory (also treated in the essay) 
of a "ruling passion." Each man has such a passion, if only you 
can find it, which explains the apparent inconsistency of his con- 
duct. This theory, which has exposed him to a charge of fatalism 
(especially from people who did not very well know what fatalism 
means), is sufficiently strikirfg for his purpose ; but it rather turns 
up at intervals than really binds the epistle into a whole. But the 
arrangement of his portrait gallery is really unsystematic ; the af- 
fectation of system is rather in the way. The most striking char- 
acters in the .essay on women were inserted (whenever composed) 
some time after its first appearance, and the construction is too 
loose to make any interruption of the argument perceptible. The 
poems contain some of Pope's most brilliant bits, but we can 
scarcely remember them as a whole. The characters of Wharton 
and Villiers, of Atossa, of the Man of Ross, and Sir Balaam, stand 
out as brilliant passages which would do almost as well in any 
other setting. In the imitations of Horace he is, of course, guided 
by lines already laid down for him ; and he has shown admirable 
skill in translating the substance as well as the words of his author 
by the nearest equivalents. This peculiar mode of imitation had 
been tried by other writers, but in Pope's hands it succeeded 
beyond all precedent. There is so much congeniality between 
Horace and Pope, and the social orders of which they were the 
spokesmen, that he can represent his original without giving us 
any sense of constraint. Yet even here he sometimes obscures 
the thread of connexion, and we feel more or less clearly that the 
order of thought is not that which would have spontaneously arisen 
in his own mind. So, for example, in the imitation of Horace's 
first epistle of the first book, the references to the Stoical and Epi- 
curean morals imply a connexion of ideas to which nothing corre- 
sponds in Pope's reproduction. Horace is describing a genuine 
experience, while Pope is only putting together a string of com- 
monplaces. The most interesting part of these imitations are 
those in which Pope takes advantage of the suggestions in Horace 
to be thoroughly autobiographical. He manages to run his own 
experience and feelings into the moulds provided for him by his 
predecessor. One of the happiest passages is that in which he 
turns the serious panegyric on Augustus into a bitter irony against 



POPE. 119 

the other Augustus, whose name was George, and who, according 
to Lord Hervey, was so contrasted with his prototype, that whereas 
personal courage was the one weak point of the emperor, it was 
the one strong point of the English king. As soon as Pope has a 
chance of expressing his personal antipathies or (to do him bare 
justice) his personal attachments, his lines begin to glow. When 
he is trying to preach, to be ethical and philosophical, he is apt to 
fall into mouthing, and to lose his place ; but when he can forget 
his stilts, or point his morality by some concrete and personal in- 
stance, every word is alive. And it is this which makes the epi- 
logues, and' more especially the prologue to the satires, his most 
impressive performances. The unity, which is very ill supplied by 
some ostensible philosophical thesis, or even by the leading-strings 
of Horace, is given by his own intense interest in himself. The 
best way of learning to enjoy Pope is to get by heart the epistle to 
Arbuthnot. That epistle is, as I have said, his Apologia. In its 
some 400 lines he has managed to compress more of his feelings 
and thoughts than would fill an ordinary autobiography. It is true 
that the epistle requires a commentator. It wants some familiarity 
with the events of Pope's life, and many lines convey only a part 
of their meaning unless we are familiar not only with the events, 
but with the characters of the persons mentioned. Passages over 
which we pass carelessly at the first reading then come out with 
wonderful freshness, and single phrases throw a sudden light upon 
hidden depths of feeling. It is also true, unluckily, that parts of 
it must be read by the rule of contraries. They tell us not what 
Pope really was, but what he wished others to think him, and what 
he probably endeavoured to persuade himself that he was. How 
far he succeeded in imposing upon himself is indeed a very curi- 
ous question which can never be fully answered. There is the 
strangest mixture of honesty and hypocrisy. Let me, he says, live 
my own, and die so too — ■ 

" (To live and die is all I have to do) 
Maintain a poet's dignity and ease, 
And see what friends and read what books I please ! " 

Well, he was independent in his fashion, and we can at least believe 
that he so far believed in himself. But when he goes on to say 
that he " can sleep without a poem in his head, 

' Nor know if Dennis be alive or dead,' " 

we remember his calling up the maid four times a night in the 
dreadful winter of 1 740 to save a thought, and the features writhing 
in anguish as he read a hostile pamphlet. Presently he informs us 
that "he thinks a lie in prose or verse the same " — only too much 
the same ! and that " if he pleased, he pleased by manly ways." 
Alas ! for the manliness. And yet again, when he speaks of his 
parents, 

" Unspotted names and venerable long, 
If there be force in virtue or in song*" 



120 



POPE. 



can we doubt that he is speaking from the heart ? We should 
perhaps like to forget that the really exquisite and touching lines 
in which he speaks of his mother had been so carefully elabor- 
ated. 

" Me let the tender office long engage 
To rock the cradle of declining age, 
With lenient acts extend a mother's breath, 
Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death, 
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, 
And keep awhile one parent from the sky ! " 

If there are more tender and exquisitely expressed dines in the 
language, I know not where to find them ; and yet again I should 
be glad not to be reminded by a cruel commentator that poor Mrs. 
Pope had been dead for two years when they were published, and 
that even this touching effusion has, therefore, a taint of dramatic 
affectation. 

To me, I confess, it seems most probable, though at first sight 
incredible, that these utterances were thoroughly sincere for the 
moment. I fancy that under Pope's elaborate masks of hypocrisy - 
and mystification there was a heart always abnormally sensitive. 
Unfortunately it was as capable of bitter resentment as of warm 
affection, and was always liable to be misled by the suggestions of 
his strangely irritable vanity. And this seems to me to give the 
true key to Pope's poetical as well as to his personal characteristics. 

To explain either, we must remember that he was a man of 
impulses ; at one instant a mere incarnate thrill of gratitude or 
generosity, and in the next of spite or jealousy. A spasm of 
wounded vanity would make him for the time as mean and selfish 
as other men are made by a frenzy of bodily fear. He would in- 
stinctively snatch at a lie even when a moment's reflection would 
have shown that the plain truth would be more convenient, and 
therefore he had to accumulate lie upon lie, each intended to patch 
up some previous blunder. Though nominally the poet of reason, 
he was the very antithesis of the man who is reasonable in the 
highest sense ; who is truthful in word and deed because his con- 
duct is regulated by harmonious and invariable principles. Pope 
was governed by the instantaneous feeling. His emotion came in 
sudden jets and gushes, instead of a continuous stream. The 
same peculiarity deprives his poetry of continuous harmony or pro- 
found unity of conception. His lively sense of form and propor- 
tion enables him, indeed, to fill up a simple framework (generally of 
borrowed design) with an eye to general effect, as in the Rape of 
Lock or the first Dunciad. But even there his flight is short ; and 
when a poem should be governed by the evolution of some pro- 
found principle or complex mood of sentiment, he becomes in- 
coherent and perplexed. But, on the other hand, he can conceive 
admirably all that can be seen at a glance from a single point of 
view. Though he could not be continuous, he could return again 
and again to the same point ; he could polish, correct, eliminate 



POPE. I21 

superfluities, and compress his meaning more and more closely, 
till he has constructed short passages of imperishable excellence. 
This microscopic attention to fragments sometimes injures the con- 
nection, and often involves a mutilation of construction. He cor- 
rects and prunes too closely. He could, he says, in reference to 
the Essay on Man, put things more briefly in verse than in prose ; 
one reason being that he could take liberties of this kind not per- 
mitted in prose writing. But the injury is compensated by the 
singular terseness and vivacity of his best style. Scarcely anv one, 
as is often remarked, has left »so large a proportion of quotable 
phrases, * and, indeed, to the present he survives chiefly by the 
current coinage of that kind which bears his image and superscrip- 
tion. 

This familiar remark may help us to solve the old problem, 
whether Pope was, or rather in what sense he was, a poet. Much 
of his work may be fairly described as rhymed prose, differing from 
prose not in substance or tone of feeling, but only in the form of 
expression. Every poet has an invisible audience, as an orator 
has a visible one, who deserves a great part of the merit of his 
works. Some men may write for the religious or philosophic re- 
cluse, and therefore utter the emotions which come to ordinary 
mortals in the rare moments when the music of the spheres, gen- 
erally drowned by the din of the commonplace world, becomes 
audible to their dull senses. Pope, on the other hand, writes for 
the wits who never listen to such strains, and moreover writes for 
their ordinary moods. He aims at giving us the refined and doubly 
distilled essence of the conversation of the statesmen and courtier's 
of his time. The standard of good writing always implicitly pres- 
ent to 'his mind is the fitness of his poetry to pass muster when 
shown by Gay to his duchess, or read after dinner to a party com- 
posed of Swift, Bolingbroke, and Congreve. That imaginary au- 
dience is always looking over his shoulder, applauding a good hit, 
chuckling over illusions to the last bit of scandal, and ridiculing 
any extravagance tending to romance or sentimentalism'. 

The limitations imposed by such a condition are obvious. As 
men of taste, Pope's friends would make their bow to the recog- 
nised authorities. They would praise Paradise Lost, but a, new 
Milton would be as much out of place with them as the real Milton at 
the court of Charles II. They would really prefer to have his verses 
tagged by Dryden, or the Samson polished by Pope. They would 
have ridiculed Wordsworth's mysticism, or Shelley's idealism, as 
they laughed at the religious " enthusiasm " of Law or Wesley, or 
the metaphysical subtleties of Berkeley and Hume. They prefer- 
red the philosophy of the Essay on Man, which might be appro- 
priated by a common-sense preacher, on the rhetoric of Eloisa and 
Abelard, bits of which might be used to excellent effect (as, indeed, 
Pope himself used the peroration) by a fine gentleman addressing 

* To take an obviously uncertain test, I find that in Bartlett's dictionary of familiar 
quotations, Shakspeare fills 70 pages ■ Milton, 23 ; Pope, 1S ; Wordsworth, 16 ; and 
Kyron, 15. The rest are nowhere. 



122 POPE. 

his gallantry to a contemporary Sappho. It is only too easy to ex« 
pose their shallowness, and therefore to overlook what was genuine 
in their feelings. After all, Pope's eminent friends were no mere 
tailor's blocks for the display of laced coats. Swift and Boling- 
broke were not enthusiasts nor philosophers, but certainly they 
were no fools. They liked, in the first place, thorough polish. 
They could appreciate a perfectly turned phrase, an epigram which 
concentrated into a couplet a volume of quick observations, a smart 
saying from Rochefoucauld or La Bruyere, which gave an edge to 
worldly wisdom ; a really brilliant utterance of one of those maxims, 
half true and not over profound, but still presenting one aspect of 
life as they saw it, which have since grown rather threadbare. This 
sort of moralising, which is the staple of Pope's epistles upon the 
ruling passion or upon avarice, strikes us now as unpleasantly 
obvious. We have got beyond it, and want some more refined 
analysis and more complex psychology. Take for example, Pope's 
epistle to Bathurst, which was in hand for two years, and is just 
400 lines in length. The simplicity of the remarks is almost comic. 
Nobody wants to be told now that bribery is facilitated by modern 
system of credit. 

" Blest paper-credit ! last and best supply 
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly ! " 

This triteness blinds us to the singular felicity with which the 
observations have been verified, a felicity which makes many of 
the phrases still proverbial. The mark is so plain that we do scant 
justice to the accuracy and precision with which it is hit. Yet when 
we notice how every epithet tells, and how perfectly the writer does 
what he tries to do, we may understand why Pope extorted contem- 
porary admiration. We may, for example, read once more the 
familiar passage about Buckingham. The picture, such as it is, 
could not be drawn more strikingly with fewer lines. 

" In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half-hung, 
The floors of plaister and the walls of dung, 
On once a flock-bed, but repair'd with straw, 
With tape-ty'd curtains never meant to draw, 
The George and Garter dangling from that bed, 
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, 
Great Villiers lies ! alas, how changed from him, 
That life of pleasure and that soul of whim ! 
Gallant and gay in Cliveden's proud alcove, 
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love ; 
As great as gay, at council in a ring 
Of mimick'd statesmen, and their merry king. 
No wit to flatter left of all his store ! 
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. 
Thus, victor of. his health, of fortune, friends, 
And fame, the lord of useless thousands ends." 

It is as graphic as a page of Dickens, and has the advantage ot 
being less grotesque, if the sentiment is equally obvious. When 



POPE. 



123 



Pope has made his hit, he does not blur the effect by trying to re- 
peat it. 

In these epistles, it must be owned that the sentiment is not 
only obvious but prosaic. The moral maxims are delivered like ad- 
vice offered by one sensible man to another, not with the impas- 
sioned fervour of a prophet. Nor can Pope often rise to that level 
at which alone satire is transmuted into the higher class of poetry. 
To accomplish that feat, if, indeed, it be possible, the poet must not 
simply ridicule the fantastic tricks of poor mortals, but show how 
they appear to the angels who weep over them. The petty figures 
must be projected against a background of the infinite, and we must 
feel the relations of our tiny eddies of life to the oceanic currents of 
human history. Pope can never rise above the crowd. He is look- 
ing at his equals, not contemplating them from the height which re- 
veals their insignificance. The element, which may fairly be called 
poetical, is derived from an inferior source; but sometimes has 
passion enough in it to lift him above mere prose. 

In one of his most animated passages, Pope relates his desire 

to 

" Brand the bold front of shameless guilty men, 
Dash the proud gamester in his gilded car, 
Bare the mean heart that lurks beneath a star." 

For the moment he takes himself seriously ; and, indeed, he 
seems to have persuaded both himself and his friends that he was 
really a great defender of virtue. Arbuthnot begged him, almost 
with his dying breath, to continue his "noble disdain and abhor- 
rence of vice," and, with a due regard to his own safety, to try 
rather to reform than chastise ; and Pope accepts the office osten- 
tatiously. His provocation is " the strong antipathy of good to 
bad," and he exclaims, — 

" Yes ! I am proud — I must be proud — to see 
Men not afraid of God afraid of me. 
Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne, 
Yet touch'dand shamed by ridicule alone." 

If the sentiment provokes a slight incredulity, it is yet worth 
while to understand its real meaning ; and the explanation is not 
very far to seek. 

Pope's best writing, I have said, is the essence of conversation. 
It has the quick movement, the boldness and brilliance, which we 
suppose to be the attributes of the best talk. Of course the appa- 
rent facility is clue to conscientious labour. In the Prologue and 
Epilogue and the best parts of the imitations of Horace, he shows 
such consummate mastery of his peculiar style, that we forget the mo- 
notonous metre. The opening passage, for example, of the Prologue 
is written apparently with the perfect freedom of real dialogue ; in 
fact, it is of course far more pointed and compressed than any dia- 
logue could ever be. The dramatic vivacity with which the whole 
scene is given shows that he could use metre as the most skilful 



124 



POPE. 



performer could command a musical instrument. Pope, indeed, 
shows, in the Essay on Criticism, that his views about the uniform- 
ity of sound and sense were crude enough ; they are analogous to 
the tricks by which a musician might decently imitate the cries of 
animals or the murmurs of a crowd ; and his art excludes any at- 
tempt at rivalling the melody of the great poets who aim at produ- 
cing a harmony quite independent of the direct meaning of their 
words. I am only speaking of the felicity with which he can move 
in metre without the slightest appearance of restraint, so as to give 
a kind of idealised representation of the tone of animated verbal 
intercourse. Whatever comes within this province he can produce 
with admirable fidelity. Now, in such talks as we imagine with 
Swift and Bolingbroke, we may be quite sure that there would be 
some very forcible denunciation of corruption— corruption being of 
course regarded as due to the diabolical agency of Walpole. Dur- 
ing his later years, Pope became a friend of all the Opposition clique, 
which was undermining the power of the great minister. In his 
last letters to Swift, Pope speaks of the new circle of promising pa- 
triots who were rising around him, and from whom he entertained 
hopes of the regeneration of this corrupt country. Sentiments of 
this kind were the staple talk of the circles in which he moved ; and 
all the young men of promise believed, or persuaded themselves to 
fancy, that a political millenium would follow the downfall of Wal- 
pole. Pope, susceptible as always to the influences of his social sur- 
roundings, took in all this, and delighted in figuring himself as the 
prophet of the new era and the denouncer of wickedness in high 
places. He sees "old England's genius" dragged in the dust, 
hears the black trumpet of vice proclaiming that " not to be cor- 
rupted is the shame," and declares that he will draw the last pen 
for freedom, and use his "sacred weapon " in truth's defence. 

To imagine Pope at his best, we must place ourselves in Twick- 
enham on some fine day, when the long disease has relaxed its 
grasp for a moment ; when he has taken a turn through his garden, 
and comforted his poor frame with potted lampreys and a glass or 
two from his frugal pint. Suppose two or three friends to be sit- 
ting with him. the stately Bolingbroke or the mercurial Bathurst, 
with one of the patriotic hopes of mankind, Marchmont or Lyttel- 
ton, to stimulate his ardour, and the amiable Spence, or Mrs. Patty 
Blount to listen reverentially to his morality. Let the conversation 
kindle into vivacity, and host and guests fall into a friendly rivalry, 
whetting each other's wits by lively repartee, and airing the little 
fragments of worldly wisdom which pass muster for profound ob- 
servation at Court ; for a time they talk platitudes, though striking 
out now and then brilliant flashes, as from the collision of polished 
rapiers ; they diverge, perhaps, into literature, and Pope shines in 
discussing the secrets of the art to which his whole life has been 
devoted with untiring fidelity. Suddenly the mention of some 
noted name provokes "a startling outburst of personal invective from 
Pope ; his friends judiciously divert the current of wrath into a new 
channel, and he becomes for the moment a generous patriot de« 



POPE. 



125 



claiming against the growth of luxury ; the mention of some sym- 
pathising friend brings out a compliment, so exquisitely turned, as 
to be a permanent title of honour, conferred by genius instead of 
power ; or the thought of his parents makes his voice tremble, and 
his eyes shine with pathetic softness ; and you forgive the occa- 
sional affectation which you can never quite forget, or even the 
occasional grossness or harshness of sentiment which contrasts so 
strongly with the superficial polish. A genuine report of even the 
best conversation would be intolerably prosy and unimaginative. 
But imagine the very pith and essence of such talk brought to a 
focus, concentrated into the smallest possible space with the infi- 
nite dexterity of a thoroughly trained hand, and you have the kind 
of writing in which Pope is unrivalled ; polished prose with occa- 
sional gleams of genuine poetry — the Epistle to Arbuthnot and the 
Epilogue to the Satires. 

One point remains to be briefly noticed. The virtue on which 
Pope prided himself was correctness : and I have interpreted this 
to mean the quality which is gained by incessant labour, guided by 
quick feeling, and always under the strict supervision of common- 
sense. The next literary revolution led to a depreciation of this 
quality. Warton (like Macaulay long afterwards) argued that in a 
higher sense, the Elizabethan poets were really as correct as Pope. 
Their poetry embodied a higher and more complex law, though it 
neglected the narrow cut-and-dried precepts recognised in the Queen 
Anne period. The new school came to express too undiscriminat- 
ing a contempt for the whole theory and practice of Pope and his 
followers. Pope, said Cowper, and a thousand critics have echoed 
his words, 

" Made poetry a mere mechanic art, 
And every warbler had his tune by heart." 

Without discussing the wider question, I may here briefly re- 
mark that this judgment, taken absolutely, gives a very false im- 
pression of Pope's artistic quality. Pope is undoubtedly monotOi 
nous. Except in one or two lyrics, such as the Ode on St. Celiacs 
Day, which must be reckoned amongst his utter failures, he in- 
variably employed the same metre. The discontinuity of his style, 
and the strict rules which he adopted, tend to disintegrate his 
poems. They are a series of brilliant passages, often of brilliant 
couplets, stuck together in a conglomerate ; and as the inferior 
connecting matter decays, the interstices open and allow the whole 
to fall into ruin. To read a series of such couplets, each complete 
in itself, and each so constructed as to allow of a very small variety 
of form, is naturally to receive an impression of monotony. Pope's 
antithesis fall into a few common forms, which are repeated over and 
over again, and seem copy to each other. And, in a sense, such 
work can be very easily imitated. A very inferior artist can obtain 
most of his efforts, and all the external qualities of his style. One 
ten-syllabled rhyming couplet, with the whole sense strictly con- 
fined within its limits, and allowing only of such variety as follows 



i 2 6 POPE, 

from changing the pauses, is undoubtedly very much like another. 
And accordingly one may read in any collection of British poets 
innumerable pages of versification which — if you do not look too 
close — are exactly like Pope. All poets who have any marked 
style are more or less imitable ; in the present age of revivals, a 
clever versifier is capable of adopting the manners of his leading 
contemporaries, or that of any poet from Spenser to Shelley or 
Keats. The quantity of work scarcely distinguishable from that 
of the worst passages in Mr. Tennyson, Mr. Browning, and Mr. 
Swinburne, seems to be limited only by the supply of stationery 
at the disposal of practised performers. That which makes the 
imitations of Pope prominent is partly the extent of his sovereignty ; 
the vast number of writers who confined themselves exclusively to 
his style : and partly the fact that what is easily imitable in him is 
so conspicuous an element of the whole. The rigid framework 
which he adopted is easily definable with mathematical precision. 
The difference between the best work of Pope and the ordinary 
work of his followers is confined within narrow limits, and not easily 
perceived at a glance. The difference between blank verse in the 
hands of its few masters and in the hands of a third-rate imitator 
strikes the ear in every line. Far more is left to the individual 
idiosyncrasy. But it does not at all follow, and in fact it is quite 
untrue, that the distinction which turns on an apparently insignifi- 
cant element is therefore unimportant. The value of all good work 
ultimately depends on touches so fine as to elude the sight. And 
the proof is that although Pope was so constantly imitated, no later 
and contemporary writer succeeded in approaching his excellence. 
Young, of the Night Thoughts, was an extraordinarily clever writer 
and talker, even if he did not (as one of his hearers asserts) eclipse 
Voltaire by the brilliance of his conversation. Young's satires 
show abundance of wit, and one may not be able to say at a glance 
in what they are inferior to Pope. Yet they have hopelessly per- 
ished, whilst Pope's work remains classical. Of all the crowd of 
eighteenth-century writers in Pope's manner, only two made an ap- 
proach to him worth notice. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes 
surpasses Pope in general sense of power, and Goldsmith's two 
poems in the same style have phrases of a higher order than Pope's. 
But even these poems have not made so deep a mark. In the 
last generation, Gifford's Baviad and Myriad, and Byron's Eng- 
lish Bards and Scotch Reviewers, were clever reproductions of 
the manner ; but Gifford is already unreadable, and Byron is pale 
beside his original ; and, therefore, making full allowance for Pope's 
monotony, and the tiresome prominence of certain mechanical 
effects, we must, I think, admit that he has after all succeeded in 
doing with unsurpassable excellence what innumerable rivals have 
failed to do as well. The explanation is — if the phrase explains 
anything — that he was a man of genius, or that he brought to a 
task, not of the highest class, a keenness of sensibility, a conscien- 
tious desire to do his very best, and a capacity for taking pains 
with his work, which enabled him to be as indisputably the first iu 



POPE. 



127 



his own peculiar line, as our greatest men have been in far more 
lofty undertakings. 

The man who could not publish pastorals without getting inta 
quarrels, was hardly likely to become a professed satirist without 
giving offence. Besides numerous stabs administered to old ene- 
mies, Pope opened some fresh animosities by passages in these 
poems. Some pointed ridicule was aimed at Montagu, Earl of 
Halifax, in the Prologue; for there can be no doubt that Halifax * 
was pointed out in the character of Bufo. Pope told a story in 
later days of an introduction to Halifax, the great patron of the 
early years of the century, who wished to hear him read his Homer. 
After the reading Halifax suggested that one passage should be 
improved. Pope retired rather puzzled by his vague remarks, but, 
by Garth's advice, returned some time afterwards, and read the 
same passage without alteration. " Ay, now, Mr. Pope," said Hali- 
fax, "they are perfectly right; nothing can be better!" This 
little incident perhaps suggested to Pope that Halifax was a hum- 
bug, and there seems, as already noticed, to have been some diffi- 
culty about the desired dedication of the Iliad. Though Halifax 
had been dead for twenty years when the Prologue appeared, Pope 
may have been in the right in satirising the pompous would-be patron, 
from whom he had received nothing, and whose pretences he had 
seen through. But the bitterness of the attack is disagreeable 
when we add that Pope paid Halifax high compliments in the pre- 
face to the Iliad, and boasted of his friendship, shortly after the 
satire, in the Epilogue to the Satires. A more disagreeable affair 
at the moment was the description, in the Epistle 011 Taste, of 
Canons, the splendid seat of the Duke of Chandos. Chandos, be- 
ing still alive, resented the attack, and Pope had not the courage 
to avow his meaning, which might in that case have been justifiable. 
He declared to Burlington (to whom the epistle was addressed), 
and to Chandos, that he had not intended Canons, and tried to 
make peace by saying in another epistle that "gracious Chandos is 
beloved at sight." This exculpation, says Johnson, was received 
by the duke " with great magnanimity, as by a man who accepted 
his excuse, without believing his professions." Nobody, in fact, 
believed, and even Warburton let out the secret by a comic over- 
sight. Pope had prophesied in his poem that another age would 
see the destruction of "Timon's Villa," when laughing Ceres would 
reassume the land. Had he lived three years longer, said Warbur- 
ton in a note, Pope would have seen his prophecy fulfilled, namely, 
by the destruction of Canons. The note was corrected, but the 
admission that Canons belonged to Timon had been made. 

To such accusations Pope had a general answer. He de- 
scribed the type, not the individual. The fault was with the public, 
who chose to fit the cap. His friend remonstrates in the Epilogue 
against his personal satire. " Come on, then, Satire, general, un- 
confined," exclaims the poet, 

* Roscoe'* attempt at a denial was conclusively answered by Bowles in one of his 
pamphlets. 



128 POPE. 

"Spread thy broad wing and souse on all the kina 

*■* * * * * # * 

Ye reverend atheists. (Friend) Scandal ! name them ! who? 
JPope) Why, that's the thing you bade me not to do. 

Who starved a sister, who forswore a debt, 

I never named ; the town's inquiring yet. 

The pois'ning dame — (F.) You mean — (P.) I don't. (F) 
You do. 
(P.) See, now, I keep the secret, and not you ! " 

It must, in fact, be admitted that from the purely artistic point 
of view Pope is right. Prosaic commentators are always asking, 
Who is meant by a poet ? as though a poem were a legal docu- 
ment. It may be interesting, for various purposes, to know who 
was in the writer's mind, or what fact suggested the general pic- 
ture. But we have no right to look outside the poem itself, or to 
infer anything not within the four corners of the statement. It 
matters not for such purposes whether there was, or was not, any 
real person corresponding to Sir Balaam, to whom his wife said, 
when he was enriched by Cornish wreckers, "live like yourself," 

" When lo ! two puddings smoked upon the board," 

in place of the previous one on Sabbath days. Nor does it even 
matter whether Atticus meant Addison, or Sappho Lady Mary. 
The satire is equally good, whether its objects are mere names or 
realities. 

But the moral question is quite distinct. In that case we 
must ask whether Pope used words calculated or intended to fix 
an imputation upon particular people. Whether he did it in prose 
or verse, the offence was the same. In many cases he gives 
real names, and in many others gives unmistakable indications, 
which must have fixed his satire to particular people. If he had 
written Addison for Atticus (as he did at first), or Lady Mary for 
Sappho, or Halifax for Bufo, the insinuation could not have been 
clearer. His attempt to evade his responsibility was a mere equi- 
vocation — a device which he seems to have preferred to direct 
lying. The character of Bufo might be equally suitable to others ; 
but no reasonable man could doubt that every one would fix it upon 
Halifax. In some cases — possibly in that of Chandos — he may 
have thought that his language was too general to apply, and occa- 
sionally it seems that he sometimes tried to evade consequences 
by adding some inconsistent characteristic to his portraits. 

I say this, because I am here forced to notice the worst of all 
the imputations upon Pope's character. The epistle on the charac- 
ters of women now includes the famous lines on Atossa, which did 
not appear till after Pope's death.* They were (in 1746) at once ap- 
plied to the famous Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough ; and a story 
immediately became current that the duchess had paid Pope 1000/. 
to suppress them, but that he preserved them, with a view to their 
ultimate publication. This story was repeated by Warton and by 

* On this subject Mr. Uilke's Papers of a Critic, 



rum. I2g 

VValpole ; it has been accepted by Mr. Carruthers, who suggests, 
by way of palliation, that Pope was desirous at the time of provid- 
ing for Martha Blount, and probably took the sum in order to buy 
an annuity for her. Now, if the story were proved, it must be ad- 
mitted that it would reveal a baseness in Pope which would be 
worthy only of the lowest and most venal literary marauders. No 
more disgraceful imputation could have been made upon Curll, or 
Curll's miserable dependents. A man who could so prostitute his 
talents must have been utterly vile. Pope has sins enough to 
answer for ; but his other meannesses were either sacrifices to his 
morbid vanity, or (like his offence against Swift, or his lies to 
Aaron Hill and Chandos) collateral results of spasmodic attempts 
to escape from humiliation. In money-matters he seems to have 
been generally independent. He refused gifts from his rich friends, 
and confuted the rather similar calumny that he had received 500/. 
from the Duke of Chandos. If the account rested upon mere con- 
temporary scandal, we might reject it on the ground of its incon- 
sistency with his known character, and its likeness to other fabri- 
cations of his enemies. There is, however, further evidence. It 
is such evidence as would, at most, justify a verdict of " not 
proven," in a court of justice. But the critic is not bound by legal 
rules, and has to say what is the most probable solution, without 
fear or favor. 

I cannot here go into the minute details. This much, however, 
may be taken as established. Pope was printing a new edition of 
his works at the time of his death. He had just distributed to his 
friends some copies of the Ef/u'c Epistles, and in those copies the 
Atossa appeared. Bolingbroke, to whom Pope had left his un- 
published papers, discovered it, and immediately identified it with 
the duchess, who (it must be noticed) was still alive. He wrote 
to Marchmont, one of Pope's executors, that there could be " no 
excuse for Pope's design of publishing it after the favour you and 
I know." This is further explained by a note added in pencil by 
Marchmont's executor, " 1000/. ; " and the son of this executor, 
who published the Marchmont papers, says that this was the 
favour received by Pope from the duchess. This, however, is far 
from proving a direct bribe. It is, in fact, hardly conceivable that 
the duchess and Pope should have made such a bargain in direct 
black and white, and equally inconceivable that two men like Bo- 
lingbroke and Marchmont should have been privy to such a trans- 
action, and spoken of it in such terms. Bolingbroke thinks that 
the favour received laid Pope under an obligation, but evidently 
does not think that it implied a contract. • Mr. Dilke has further 
pointed out that there are many touches in the character which dis- 
tinctly apply to the Duchess of Buckingham, with whom Pope had 
certainly quarrelled, and which will not apply to the Duchess of 
Marlborough, who had undoubtedly made friends with him during 
the last years of his life. Walpole again tells a story,, partly con- 
firmed by Warton, that Pope had shown the character to each 
duchess (Warton says only to Marlborough), saying that it was 



130 



POPE. 



meant for the other. The Duchess of Buckingham, he says, be- 
lieved him; the other had more sense, and paid him iooo/. to sup- 
press it. Walpole is no trustworthy authority ; but the coincid- 
ence implies at least that such a story was soon current. 

The most probable solution must conform to these data. Pope's 
Atossa was a portrait which would fit either lady, though it would 
be naturally applied to the most famous. It seems certain, also 
that Pope had received some favours (possibly the iooo/. on some 
occasion unknown) from the Duchess of Marlborough, which was 
felt by his friends to make any attack upon her unjustifiable. We 
can scarcely believe that there should have been a direct compact 
of the kind described. If Pope had been a person of duly sensitive 
conscience he would have suppressed his work. But to suppress 
anything that he had written, and especially a passage so carefully 
labored, was always agony to him. He preferred, as we may per- 
haps conjecture, to settle in his own mind that it would fit the 
Duchess of Buckingham, and possibly introduce some of the touches 
to which Mr. Dilke refers. He thought it sufficiently disguised to 
be willing to publish it whilst the person with whom it was naturally 
identified was still alive. Had she complained, he would have relied 
upon those touches, and have equivocated as he equivocated to 
Hill and Chandos. He always seems to have fancied that he could 
conceal himself by very thin disguises. But he ought to have known, 
and perhaps did know, that it would be immediately applied to the 
person who had conferred an obligation. From that guilt no 
hypothesis can relieve him ; but it is certainly not proved, and 
seems, on the whole, improbable that he was so base as the con- 
cession of his biographers would indicate. 



POPE. 



131 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE END. 

The last satires were published in 1738. Six years of life still 
remained to Pope ; his intellectual powers were still vigorous, and his 
pleasure in their exercise had not ceased. The only fruit, however, 
of his labors during this period was the fourth book of the Dunciad. 
He spent much time upon bringing out new editions of his works, and 
upon the various intrigues connected with the Swift correspondence. 
But his health was beginning to fail. The ricketty framework was 
giving way, and failing to answer the demands of the fretful and ex- 
citable brain. In the spring of 1744 the poet was visibly breaking 
up; he suffered from dropsical asthma, and seems to have made 
matters worse by putting"Eimself in the hands of a notorious quack — 
a Dr. Thompson. The end was evidently near as he completed his 
fifty-sixth year. Friends, old and new, were often in attendance. 
Above all, Bolingbroke, the venerated friend of thirty years' stand- 
ing ; Patty Blount, the woman whom he loved best ; and the ex- 
cellent Spence, who preserved some of the last words of the dying 
main. The scene, as he saw it, was pathetic ; perhaps it is not less 
pathetic to us. for whom it has another side as of grim tragic humor. 

Three weeks before his death Pope was sending off copies 
of the Ethic Epistles — apparently with the Atossa lines — to his 
friends. " Here I am, like Socrates," he said, "dispensing my mor- 
ality amongst my friends just as I am dying." Spence watched 
him as anxiously as his disciples watched Socrates. He was 
still sensible to kindness. Whenever Miss Blount came in, the 
failing spirits rallied for a moment. He was always saying some- 
thing kindly of his friends, '•' as if his humq lnty had outlasted his 
understanding." Bolingbroke, when Spencemade the remark, said 
that he had never known a man with so tender a heart for his own 
friends or for mankind. " I have known him," he added, " these 
thirty years, and value myself more for that man's love than — " 
and his voice was lost in tears. At moments Pope could still be 
playful. " Here I am, dying of a hundred good symptoms," he re- 
plied to some flattering report, but his mind was beginning to wan- 
der. He complained of seeing things as through a curtain. 
" What's that ? " he said pointing to the air, and then, with a 
smile of great pleasure, added softly, " 'twas a vision." His religi- 
ous sentiments still edified his hearers. "I am certain." lie said, 
4c of the soul's being immortal, that I seem to feel it within me, as 



132 



POPE. 



it were by intuition ; " and early one morning he rose from bed and 
tried to begin an essay upon immortality, apparently in a state of 
semi-delirium. On his last day he sacrificed, as Chesterfield rather 
cynically observes, his cock to /Esculapius. Hooke, a zealous Catho- 
lic friend, asked him whether he would not send for the priest. " I 
do not suppose that it is essential," said Pope, " but it will Isok right, 
and I heartily thank you for putting me in mind of it." A priest 
was brought, and Pope received the last sacraments with -reat 
fervour and resignation. Next day, on May 30, 1744, he died so 
peacefully that his friends could not determine the exact moment 
of death. 

It was a soft and touching end ; and yet we must once more look 
at the other side. Warburton and Bolingbroke both appear to have 
been at the side of the dying man, and before very long they were 
to be quarrelling over his grave. Pope's will showed at once that 
his quarrels were hardly to end with his death. He had quarrelled, 
though the quarrel had been made up, with the generous Allan, for 
some cause not ascertainable, except that it arose. from the mutual 
displeasure of Mrs. Allan and Miss Blount. It is pleasant to 
notice that, in the course of the quarrel, Pope mentioned War- 
burton, in a letter to Miss Blount, as a sneaking parson ; but War- 
burton was not aware of the flash of sarcasm. Pope, as Johnson 
puts it, " polluted his will with female resentment." He left a 
legacy of 150/. to Allan, being, as he added, the amount received 
from his friend — for himself or for charitable purposes : and re- 
quested Allan, if he should refuse the legacy for himself, to pay it 
to the Bath Hospital. Allan adopted this suggestion, saying quietly 
that Pope had always been a bad accountant, and would have 
come nearer to the truth if he had added a cypher to the figures. 

Another fact came to light, which produced a fiercer outburst. 
Pope, it was found, had printed a whole edition (1500 copies) of the 
Patriot King, Bolingbroke's most polished work. The motive 
could have been nothing but a desire to preserve to posterity what 
Pope considered to be a monument worthy of the highest genius, 
ana was so far complimentary to Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke, how- 
ever, considered it as an act of gross treachery. Pope had re- 
ceived the work on condition of keeping it strictly private, and 
showing it to only a few friends. Moreover, he had corrected it, 
arranged it, and altered or omitted passages according to his own 
taste, which naturally did not suit the author's. In 1749 Boling- 
broke gave a copy to Mallet for publication, and prefixed an angry 
statement to expose the breach of trust of " a man on whom the 
author thought he could entirely depend." Warburton rushed to 
the defence of Pope and the demolition of Bolingbroke. A savage 
controversy followed, which survives only in the title of one of 
Bolingbroke's pamphlets, A Familiar Epistle to the most Impudent 
Man Living — a transparent paraphrase for Warburton. Pope's 
behaviour is too much of a piece with previous underhand trans« 
actions, but scarcely deserves further condemnation. 



POPE. 



*33 



A single touch remains. P'ope was buried by his own direc- 
tions, in a vault in Twickenham Church, near the monument erected 
to his parents. It contained a simple inscription, ending with the 
words, " Parentibus bene merentibus ftlius fecit P To this, as he 
directed in his will, was to be added simply "et sibi." This was 
done ; but seventeen years afterwards the clumsy Warburton 
erected in the same church another monument to Pope himself, 
with this stupid inscription. Poeta loquitur. 

" For one who would not be bztried in Westminster Abbey. 

Heroes and kings, your distance keep I 
In peace let one poor poet sleep 
Who never flatter'd folks like yon ; 
Let Horace blush, and Virgil too." 

Most of us can tell from experience how grievously our pos- 
thumous ceremonials often jar upon the tenderest feelings of 
survivors. Pope's valued friends seem to have done their best to 
surround the last scene of his life with painful associations ; and 
Pope, alas ! was an unconscious accomplice. To us of a later gen- 
eration it is impossible to close this strange history without a sin- 
gular mixture of feelings. Admiration for the extraordinary liter- 
erary talents, respect for the energy which, under all disadvantages 
of health and position, turned these talents to the best account ; 
love of the real tender-heartedness which formed the basis of the 
man's character ; pity for the many sufferings to which his morbid 
sensitiveness exposed him ; contempt for the meannesses into which 
he was hurried; ridicule for the insatiable vanity which prompted 
his most degrading subterfuges ; horror for the bitter animosities 
which must have tortured the man who cherished them even more 
than his victims — are suggested simultaneously by the name of 
Pope. As we look at him in one or other aspect, each feeling may 
come uppermost in turn. The most abiding sentiment — when we 
think of him as a literary phenomenon — is admiration for the ex- 
quisite skill which enabled him to discharge a function, not of the 
highest kind, with a perfection rare in any department of literature. 
It is more difficult to say what will be the final element in our feel- 
ing about the man. Let us hope that it may be the pity which, 
after a certain lapse of years, we may be excused from conceding 
to the victim of moral as well as physical diseases. 



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LOVELL'S LIBRARY-CATALOGUE. 



185. Mysterious Island, Pt II. 15 
Mysterious Island, Ptlll. 15 

186. Tom Brown at Oxford, 

2 Parts, each 15 

187. Thicker than Water 20 

•88. In Silk Attire 20 

■89. Scottish Chiefs, Part I.. 20 

Scottish Chiefs, Part II. 20 

190. Willy Reilly 20 

191. The Nautz Family 20 

192. Great Expectations 20 

193. Hist.of Pendennis.Pt I..20 
Hist. of Pendennis,Pt II 20 

194. Widow Bedott Papers ..20 

195. Daniel Deronda, Part I.. 20 
Daniel Deronda, Part II. 20 

196. Altiora Peto 20 

197. By the Gate of the Sea.. 15 

198. Tales of a Traveller 20 

199. Life and Voyages of Co- 

lumbus, 2 Parts, each. 20 

200. The Pilgrim's Progress. .20 

201. MartinChuzzlewit.P'rt 1. 20 
MartinChuzzlewitjP't 1 1. 20 

202. Theophrastus Such 10 

203. Disarmed 15 

204. Eugene Aram 20 

20s. The Spanish Gypsy, &C.20 

206. Cast up by the Sea 20 

207. Mill on the Floss, Part T. 15 
Mill on the Floss, P't II. 15 

208. Brother Jacob, etc 10 

209. The Executor 20 

210. American Notes 15 

211. The Newcomes, Part I.. 20 
The Newcomes, Part 1 1. 20 

212. The Privateersman 20 

213. The Three Feathers 20 

214. Phantom Fortune 20 

215. The Red Eric 20 

216. Lady Silverdale's Sweet- 

heart 10 

217. The Four Macnicol's . ..10 
2i8.Mr.PisisrratusBrown,M.P.io 

219. Dombeyand Son, Part 1. 20 
Dombey and Son, Part IL20 

220. Book of Snobs 10 

?zi. Fairy Tales, Illustrated.. 20 

222. The Disowned 20 

223. Little Don-it, Part 1 20 

Little Don-it, Part II 20 

224. Abbotsford and New- 

stead Abbey 10 

225. Oliver Goldsmith, Black 10 

226. The Fire Brigade 20 

227. Rifle and Hound in Cey- 
lon 20 

228. Our Mutual Friend, P't 1. 20 
OurMutualFriend.P't II. 20 

229. Paris Sketches 15 

230. Belinda 20 

-31. Nicholas Nickleby.P't 1. 20 

NicholasNickleby,P't II. 20 
232. Monarch of Mincing 

Lane 20 

■,3. Eight Years' Wanderings 

in Ceylon 20 

54. Pictures from Italy 15 

15. Adventures of Philip, Pt 1. 15 
Adventures of Philip, Pt II. 15 
36. Knickerbocker History 
of New York 20 



252. 

253- 
254. 

255- 

256, 
257. 
258. 
259- 

260. 
261. 

262. 
263. 
264. 
265. 
266. 
267. 
268. 

269. 
270. 
271. 
272. 
273- 
274. 

275- 
276. 

277- 
278. 
279. 
280. 
281. 
2S2. 
283. 
284. 
285. 

286. 
2S7. 
288. 
289. 
290. 
291. 
292. 
293- 
294. 
295. 
296. 
297. 



The Boy at Mugby 10 

The Virginians, Part I.. 20 
The Virginians, Part 1 1. 20 

Erling the Bold 20 

Kenelm Chillingly 20 

Deep Down 20 

Samuel Brohl & Co 20 

Gautran 20 

Bleak House, Part I 20 

Bleak House, Part 1 1... 20 
What Will He Do With 

It ? 2 Parts, each 20 

Sketches of YoungCouples. 10 

De vereux 20 

Life of Webster, Part 1. 15 
Life of Webster, Pt. II. 15 

The Crayon Papers 20 

The Caxtons, Part I 15 

The Caxtons, Part 1 1... 15 
Autobiography of An- 
thony Trollope 20 

Critical Reviews, etc. ... 10 

Lucretia 20 

Peter the Whaler 20 

Last of the Barons. Pt 1. 15 
Last of the Barons.Pt.II.is 

Eastern Sketches 15 

All in a Garden Fair 20 

File No. 113 20 

The Parisians, Part I . . .20 
The Parisians, Part 1 1.. 20 
Mrs. Darling's Letters ... 20 
Master Humphrey's 

Clock 10 

Fatal Boots, etc 10 

The Alhambra 15 

The Four Georges 10 

Plutarch's Lives, 5 Pts. $1. 

Under the Red Flag 10 

TheHaunted House, etc. 10 
When the Ship Comes 

Home 10 

One False, both Fair. ...20 
The Mudfog Papers, etc. 10 
My Novel, 3 Parts,' each.20 
Conquest of Granada. ..20 

Sketches by Boz 20 

A Christmas Carol, etc. . 15 

lone Stewart 20 

Harold, 2 Parts, each. . . 15 

Dora Thome 20 

Maid of Athens 20 

Conquest of Spain 10 

Fitzboodle Papers, etc. . 10 

Bracebridge Hall 20 

Uncommercial Traveller.20 

Roundabout Papers 20 

Rossmoyne 20 

A Legend of the Rhine, 

etc 10 

Cox's Diary, etc 10 

Beyond Pardon 20 

Somebody'sLuggage,etc. 10 

Godolphin 20 

Salmagundi 20 

Famous Funny Fellows. 20 

Irish Sketches, etc 20 

The Battle of Life, etc.. . 10 
Pilgrims of the Rhine ...15 

Random Shots 20 

Men's Wives 10 

Mystery of Edwin Drood.20 



298. Reprinted Pieces 29 

299. Astoria ....20 

300. Novels by Eminent Hands 10 

301. Companions of Columbus20 

302. No Thoroughfare 10 

303. Character Sketches, etc. 10 

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305. A Tour on the Prairies... 10 

306. Ballads 15 

307. Yellowplush Papers 10 

308. Life of Mahomet, Part 1. 15 
Life of Mahomet, Pt. II. 15 

309. Sketches and Travels in 

London 10 

310. Oliver Goldsmith.Irving.20 

3 1 1. Captain Bonneville .... 20 

312. Golden Girls 20 

313. English Humorists 15 

3 14. Moorish Chronicles 10 

315. Winifred Power 20 

316. Great HoggartyDiamond 10 

317. Pausanias 15 

318. The New Abelard 20 

319. A Real Queen 20 

320. The Rose and the Ring.20 

32 1. Wolfert's Roost and Mis- 

cellanies, by Irving-...io 

322. Mark Seawo'rth 20 

323. Life of Paul Jones 20 

324. Round the World 20 

325. Elbow Room 20 

326. The Wizard's Son 25 

327. Harry Lorrequer 20 

328. How It All Came Round.20 

329. Dante Rosetti's Poems. 20 

330. The Canon's Ward 20 

331. Lucile, by O. Meredith. 20 

332. Every Day Cook Book.. 20 

333. Lays of Ancient Rome.. 20 

334. Life of Burns 20 

335- The Young Foresters. .. 20 

336. John Bull andHis Island 20 

337. Salt Water, by Kingston. 20 

338. The Midshipman 20 

339. Proctor's Poems 20 

340. Clayton's Rangers 20 

341. Schiller's Poems 20 

342. Goethe's Faust 20 

343. Goethe's Poems 20 

344. Life of Thackeray 10 

345. Dante's Vision of Hell, 
Purgatory and Paradise. .20 

346. An Interesting Case 20 

347. Life of Byron, Nichol. . . 10 
34S. Life of Bunyan 10 

349. Valerie's Fate 10 

350. Grandfather Lickshingle. 20 

351. Lays of the Scottish Ca- 

valiers 20 

352. Willis' Poems 20 

353. Tales of the French Re- 

volution 15 

354. Loom and Lugger 20 

355. More Leaves from a Life 

in the Highlands 15 

356. Hygiene of the Brain. ..25 

357. Berkeley the Banker. .. .20 

358. Homes Abroad 15 

359. Scott's Lady of the Lake, 

with notes aq 

360. Modern Christianity a 
civilized Heathenism. ...15 



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